In January 2008. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he backed state lawmakers’ push to revise strict term limits for a specific reason. In response to a question I asked him at an editorial board meeting, Arnold said he thought Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Don Perata deserved to keep their jobs because under their stewardship, they had kept the state in “a good kind of groove.”

Really? In what way? Both at the time and six years later, any “groove” is hard to discern.

Now we’re seeing another display of this from the Sacramento media-political establishment: the recent media boomlet promoting the idea that departing Senate President Darrell Steinberg has done such a bang-up job that he deserves another really big job after he is termed-out — as justice on the California Supreme Court.

Here’s what the Sac Bee’s Capitol Alert had to say about what Ventura County Star columnist Timm Herdt had to say:

Herdt makes the case that Gov. Jerry Brown should appoint Steinberg to fill one of two openings on the California Supreme Court. Herdt praised Steinberg as the “most productive legislative leader” since term limits were imposed, and argued for his broad expertise in state law and his skill as a consensus-builder.

Herdt wrote that Steinberg — who worked as an employee-rights lawyer and an administrative law judge before being elected to the Legislature — would be a “soberly creative” choice for Brown.

‘Productive’ in what sense?

Now I understand why folks might have been charmed by Núñez. He has a loose, funny, teasing manner, or at least he did in my several encounters with him. And I understand that many journos think well of Steinberg, who by most accounts is very smart and a very hard worker.

But just as back in 2008 I wondered what kind of groove Arnold was perceiving, with Herdt’s assessment of Steinberg, I wonder in what sense has the Senate leader been “productive.”

In the past dozen years, where are the big achievements that Steinberg has produced?

California has the highest poverty rate in the nation, and by far.

The great majority of counties have never emerged from the Great Recession.

California’s schools are clearly behind the nation’s other mega states when it comes to apples-to-apples comparisons of students by age and ethnicity.

The 2012 state pension reform measure is vanilla and doesn’t do remotely enough to help the local governments that are hardest hit.

The 2014 teachers pension bailout puts 90 percent of the burden on taxpayers and only 10 percent on teachers themselves. A key selling point of the 2012 state pension reform was that it would force employees to equally share in their pension costs. Never mind!

The state appears no closer to solving its intractable water problems.

This list could go on and on.

That’s all you got?

So what is behind the happy talk?

I think much of it has to do with the fact that Prop. 25 makes it easier to pass budgets and not have multi-month dramas summer after summer after summer.

And some of it also has to do with AB 32, the state’s landmark 2006 law forcing a shift to cleaner-but-costlier energy.

Journos never seem to remember that it was peddled with the claim that it would convince the rest of the world to copy California; that didn’t happen. Nor do they ever notice that in 2006, no one had the audacity to pretend it was a job-creation program, the present ongoing Lie No. 1 of public policy in the Golden State.

This rosy-scenario-itis isn’t a new problem, alas. Here’s an example from 2008.

The view from within a one-mile perimeter around the state Capitol sure is counter to the view in California’s other 163,000 square miles.

By Chris Reed

On Monday, the day that finally saw criminal charges filed over CalPERS’ brazen pay-to-play bribery scheme, there were signs that some Democratic state lawmakers finally are figuring out that believing California’s pension status quo is ridiculous isn’t just partisan right-wing posturing.

Ed Mendel, one of a handful of elite reporters on pension machinations, has the scoop at Capitol Weekly:

“Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, an upset victor last fall in a new election process, has introduced a bill containing Gov. Brown’s stalled proposal to restructure the CalPERS board, adding financial expertise and loosening labor control.

“The proposal to change the board, which needs voter approval because of a labor-backed initiative in 1992, would double the number of gubernatorial appointees to six, matching the number of labor representatives.

“’In the past, the lack of independence and financial sophistication on public retirement boards has contributed to unaffordable pension benefit increases,’ said the 12-point pension reform proposed by Brown in October 2011.

“The proposal said pension boards need members with ‘independence and sophistication’ to ensure that retirees receive promised benefits ‘without exposing taxpayers to large unfunded liabilities.’”

‘Unsophisticated’? Or union double agents?

Journalistic decorum requires Mendel to pretend the problem is a lack of sophistication on board members’ part, not the fact that they are union tools. Why is this problematic? More from Ed:

“CalPERS sponsored legislation, SB 400 in 1999, that gave state workers a major retroactive pension increase. A deep pension cut in 1991 was rolled back. Retirees received a 1 to 6 percent increase in their pensions.

“Highway Patrol pensions increased 50 percent, setting a costly bargaining benchmark for local police and firefighters that critics say is unsustainable. All of this, CalPERS erroneously said, would be paid for by investment earnings, not costing taxpayers ‘a dime.’”

Here’s a factoid that goes a long way to explain why California is so screwed up. Who is the president of the CalPERS’ Board of Administration?

Is it a UC Berkeley economist? A CEO of a thriving Califoria firm? A respected former statewide official considered an independent straight-shooter?

Nah.

It’s this guy.

“Mr. Feckner is the Past President of the California School Employees Association. He also serves as an Executive Vice President of the California Labor Federation.”

How insane that a guy with such preposterous and extreme conflicts of interest is CalPERS’ board chairman.

How … California.