"We will hunt down the people that are responsible for that."

These were the words from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in response to learning that several of the wildfires have swept through parts of California last week, burning down thousands of acres, were the work of arsonists.

It's too bad too, because Fox News had just convinced me that all of this was the work of Al Qaeda, and I was halfway to figuring out what country we would invade next.

In case you were wondering, it was France. I don't know if they started the fire, but they annoy the hell out of me, and someone needs to shut them up before I go back to calling my sliced potatoes "freedom fries."

What's worse is that I could hear the snickering in the background beginning to grow. I could already see the headlines on the newspapers the next day: "Schwarzeneggar back to his old ways," they would say, mocking his vigilance to catch these villainous fire-starters. Everyone would take him as some big joke. That is, everyone but me.

Although Schwarzenegger's words weren't up to par with some of his more memorable lines like, "If it bleeds, we can kill it," which I think should have been the line immediately following the one above, it brought a sense of comfort to know that we did, in fact, have the best man for the job.

Think about it: Schwarzenegger is the same guy who, for three movies, focused on hunting John Connor and killing anyone who came across his path. He also took out an entire terrorist organization when they kidnapped his wife and daughter, and even outsmarted a highly intelligent alien life form by covering himself in mud.

He is a hunting machine. There is no doubt about it. So don't be surprised if by the end of this week, he holds another press conference with a couple of heads on stakes and a giant grin on his face.

I can see why it might be hard to take Gov. Schwarzenegger seriously or to think that he'll actually succeed in hunting and disemboweling these criminals. He did star in Kindegarten Cop; it's hard to take anyone seriously after you've seen him or her argue with a kid about eating Cheetos.

Then again, I think we've grown into a society where it's hard for anyone to be taken seriously. I remember when he began running for governor, everyone laughed at him thinking this was just some giant ploy to get them to go see his newest movie.

But he won that election and gave the whole state of California, as well as everyone who was certain our country wouldn't be dumb enough to elect him, the good-ol', "F*** you!" And he's been doing it ever since, although not nearly as long as George W.

A more profound and realistic example of this phenomenon is Stephen Colbert's decision to run for president. Ever since he announced his candidacy for the big seat last week, he's been the talk of the town, with people jumping on the bandwagon like he is the Red Sox of politics.

And much to everyone's surprise, except my own, he is garnering a following that is making the rest of the political sphere start to sweat. For instance, a Facebook group entitled, "1,000,000 strong for Stephen T Colbert," was not only able to gather a million members in fewer than 10 days, but also wasted a good 20 minutes of my life as I got distracted by all the videos members were posting on the group site.

I know a lot of people find it hard to imagine that electing a comedian as president would be a great idea, but obviously these are people who didn't see Man of the Year starring Robin Williams, although Stephen Colbert is funnier than Robin Williams — not that Colbert will solve all of our problems. As we all know, Al Qaeda doesn't seem to have a sense of humor, unless their sense of humor involves blowing things up — in which case, they are more like those people who are always laughing at their own jokes, while everyone else at the party just stares at them.

But understanding our country's ability to know when something, which would otherwise seem like a complete mistake, is in fact a sure thing, I expect to see Colbert sitting in the Oval Office next November — just like I expect to see those damn arsonists on stakes.

[Reach columnist Eric Uthus at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]