You’ve got to love California. I’ve been trying to find the video of this exchange, but no luck. Gov. Schwarzenegger participated in a discussion Wednesday with Warren Buffett and Chris Matthews at Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference in Long Beach.

Though the session focused mainly on economics, this part was entertaining (from an LA Times story):

What could have been austere talk about falling stock prices and glass ceilings drew laughter and gasps from many of the 10,000 women in the audience when Buffett, playing to the crowd, hit Matthews with a particularly challenging question: “If you could have changed your sex into that of a woman, would you have?”

Matthews smiled sheepishly, then rambled about the virtues of womanhood.

Schwarzenegger eventually reminded him: “You didn’t answer the question.” Then Schwarzenegger took off on his own ruminations about the power and potential of women, although he pointed out that, “Here in California, they do have men that become women.”

Matthews fired back: “Is that what you mean by ‘girlie boys’?” — a reference to Schwarzenegger’s infamous label for gutless legislators.

Kinda makes you wish Arnold would have kept the “girlie boys” mantra going through the last couple years of budget negotiations instead of checking his manhood at the door.

Arnold went on to say that the state Legislature could use more women among its ranks, suggesting that then perhaps more progress would be made. Actually, it could use more Republicans — most California women politicians come from the Pelosi-Boxer crowd, and they’ve been sooo successful in bringing progress to the Golden State.