U.S.: Sniff! Sob! Gulp! Boo-hoo! Ahnuld called us "girlie men"! Sob! Sniff! Gulp!...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wrapped up a weekend of rallies with renewed calls for a budget deal, a spokesman said the governor won't apologize for calling lawmakers "girlie men" despite criticism from Democrats that the remark was sexist and homophobic.

The comment came during a rally on Saturday as Schwarzenegger railed against Democrats who he said were holding up the budget by catering to special interests.

"If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers... if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men," Schwarzenegger said to the cheering crowd at a mall food court in Ontario.

Democrats responded that Schwarzenegger's comments were insulting to women and gays and distracted from budget negotiations.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, a Santa Monica Democrat, called it "troubling" that the governor used what she termed a "homophobic way of trying to put down legislative leadership."

"It uses an image that is associated with gay men in an insulting way, and it was supposed to be an insult," said Kuehl, one of five members of the Legislature's five-member Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus.

The governor lifted the term from a long-running "Saturday Night Live" skit in which two pompous, Schwarzenegger-worshipping weightlifters repeatedly use it to mock those who don't meet their standards of physical perfection.

These Democrats ought to get their panties out of a twist. Really. Just imagine, these are the same people who call Bush 'Hitler' and 'liar' and a whole host of other pernicious pejoratives. What they've proven is that they can dish it out but can't take it.

First rule of 'fatigue and picong,' if you can't take it, don't give cuz when you get it, you've got to take it like a man.

Word to Ahnuld: take a page from Trinis and call them 'sof' (soft) man.' That's what Democrats are, anyway, a bunch of sof' man.