Arnie The Octopus

[Marina]

At his post-victory press conference, Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked whether he would keep his promise to investigate the charges of sexual harassment made against him. "Old news," the governator replied. It was a dismissal Bill Clinton could envy.

Of course, Clinton was the nemesis of angry white men, while Arnold is hardly that. Sexual solidarity is the main reason why he prevailed. Unlike most California elections, where women are the majority of voters, this one was a white-boy jamboree. Exit polls revealed that female voters were evenly divided on the recall. If they had come out in their usual numbers, it might well have failed. But many women sat this one out, perhaps because they were appalled by every option. On the other hand, white men were fired up, and they voted overwhelmingly for the candidate who made them feel empowered: the Human Hummer.

For this constituency, it's quite possible that the groping allegations made Arnold seem even more like The Man. No exit poll can measure that kind of perception. Nor will we know how many women were turned on by fantasies of Arnold's prowess. But the polls did show that women under 30 were the least likely to buy his apology. Their mothers were more amenable. They had been taught to accept this explanation, or even to collude in the joke.

Take the woman on the Total Recall set who was fondled by Arnold and was told that her breasts needed realignment. "Though she was visibly embarrassed," wrote one reporter who saw the incident, "she ended up laughing along with a dozen or so crew members." That's the typical grin-and-bear-it reaction to unwanted tactile attention from a powerful man. To complain is to risk ridicule or worse. The woman who accused Arnold of pulling up her T-shirt and sucking on her breast (a photo of this magic moment was displayed on the set) was called a prostitute by the Schwarzenegger campaign.

So deep is the reflex to avoid further humiliation that even U.S. Senator Patty Murray kept silent when Strom Thurmond groped her in an elevator. Another senator, Bob Packwood, was forced to resign in 1995 after he was accused of harassing 17 women. But as Steven Sack, author of The Working Woman's Legal Survival Guide, notes, in order for groping to be legally actionable, "it has to be hard enough to leave a mark." If it's done in private and nothing shows, or if the perp isn't in a supervisory role, there may be no recourse. Still, serial groping can be prosecuted, and if all the women who were hit on by Arnold had filed charges, they might have had a case. Instead, they kept their silence for years. That's why it's unlikely that Arnold will be indicted. "You have to come forward when it happens," says Sack. "There's a statute of limitations—in some states it's six months—and the only way to stop the clock is to complain."

It wasn't even possible to do that until 1986, when the Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment is a form of discrimination. We're still working out the definition of that crime—and groping is right on the boundary between boorish and illegal behavior. As the California election shows, when it comes to guys who grab girls, we're living in the days of A Streetcar Named Desire. Remember the moment when Stanley smacks Stella on the butt because she's annoyed him? "I hate when he does that," Stella tells her sister, with a twinkle. That's how the voters treated Arnold.

Tolerance of male sexual aggression that stops short of rape is the main reason why Schwarzenegger got away with groping for three decades. In liberal Hollywood, he earned the affectionate nickname "The Octopus." In the wake of his victory, we're told that Americans have come to think of a politician's sex life as irrelevant. Clinton gets blamed for that, as well. But this libertarian attitude applies only to men. What if an actress running for office had a history of grabbing men's crotches? Would the voters overlook it? The answer speaks to the politics of groping.

WOMEN: If you want to stop gropinators in their tracks, grab them back! Not as a romantic response, but as a preemptive action when a guy is known for this m.o. Some people may shrink from the thought of mutually assured harassment, but there's another possibility. Women might feel less humiliated by erotic touching if they could respond in kind, and men might not get off on groping if it were no longer a sign of macho. When you change the power relations, an aggressive act takes on new meaning. A predatory male practice can evolve into a tacitly consensual rite. And when it comes to human sexuality, that may be the most you can expect.

[Quantum]

At his post-victory press conference, Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked whether he would keep his promise to investigate the charges of sexual harassment made against him. "Old news," the governator replied. It was a dismissal Bill Clinton could envy.

Of course, Clinton was the nemesis of angry white men, while Arnold is hardly that. Sexual solidarity is the main reason why he prevailed. Unlike most California elections, where women are the majority of voters, this one was a white-boy jamboree. Exit polls revealed that female voters were evenly divided on the recall. If they had come out in their usual numbers, it might well have failed. But many women sat this one out, perhaps because they were appalled by every option. On the other hand, white men were fired up, and they voted overwhelmingly for the candidate who made them feel empowered: the Human Hummer.

For this constituency, it's quite possible that the groping allegations made Arnold seem even more like The Man. No exit poll can measure that kind of perception. Nor will we know how many women were turned on by fantasies of Arnold's prowess. But the polls did show that women under 30 were the least likely to buy his apology. Their mothers were more amenable. They had been taught to accept this explanation, or even to collude in the joke.

Take the woman on the Total Recall set who was fondled by Arnold and was told that her breasts needed realignment. "Though she was visibly embarrassed," wrote one reporter who saw the incident, "she ended up laughing along with a dozen or so crew members." That's the typical grin-and-bear-it reaction to unwanted tactile attention from a powerful man. To complain is to risk ridicule or worse. The woman who accused Arnold of pulling up her T-shirt and sucking on her breast (a photo of this magic moment was displayed on the set) was called a prostitute by the Schwarzenegger campaign.

So deep is the reflex to avoid further humiliation that even U.S. Senator Patty Murray kept silent when Strom Thurmond groped her in an elevator. Another senator, Bob Packwood, was forced to resign in 1995 after he was accused of harassing 17 women. But as Steven Sack, author of The Working Woman's Legal Survival Guide, notes, in order for groping to be legally actionable, "it has to be hard enough to leave a mark." If it's done in private and nothing shows, or if the perp isn't in a supervisory role, there may be no recourse. Still, serial groping can be prosecuted, and if all the women who were hit on by Arnold had filed charges, they might have had a case. Instead, they kept their silence for years. That's why it's unlikely that Arnold will be indicted. "You have to come forward when it happens," says Sack. "There's a statute of limitations—in some states it's six months—and the only way to stop the clock is to complain."

It wasn't even possible to do that until 1986, when the Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment is a form of discrimination. We're still working out the definition of that crime—and groping is right on the boundary between boorish and illegal behavior. As the California election shows, when it comes to guys who grab girls, we're living in the days of A Streetcar Named Desire. Remember the moment when Stanley smacks Stella on the butt because she's annoyed him? "I hate when he does that," Stella tells her sister, with a twinkle. That's how the voters treated Arnold.

Tolerance of male sexual aggression that stops short of rape is the main reason why Schwarzenegger got away with groping for three decades. In liberal Hollywood, he earned the affectionate nickname "The Octopus." In the wake of his victory, we're told that Americans have come to think of a politician's sex life as irrelevant. Clinton gets blamed for that, as well. But this libertarian attitude applies only to men. What if an actress running for office had a history of grabbing men's crotches? Would the voters overlook it? The answer speaks to the politics of groping.

WOMEN: If you want to stop gropinators in their tracks, grab them back! Not as a romantic response, but as a preemptive action when a guy is known for this m.o. Some people may shrink from the thought of mutually assured harassment, but there's another possibility. Women might feel less humiliated by erotic touching if they could respond in kind, and men might not get off on groping if it were no longer a sign of macho. When you change the power relations, an aggressive act takes on new meaning. A predatory male practice can evolve into a tacitly consensual rite. And when it comes to human sexuality, that may be the most you can expect.

Times change.. They ran Packwood out of office and re elected clinton and now voted Arnold in. Sadder thing is that Calif could come up with a real candidate.

[Brazuca]

Arnold's groping? Please, Dems, get a grip

October 5, 2003

BY MARK STEYN SUN

The Democratic Party may no longer be able to find a California governor mediocre enough to avoid getting recalled or a time-serving hack minimally competent enough to replace him, but, by golly, it still knows how to spring the ol' weekend-before-polling-day surprise. At the same point in the 2000 presidential election, a story about an ancient drunk-driving conviction by George W. Bush hit the headlines and drove just enough still-undecided voters into the Al Gore camp to make it a cliffhanger election. This time round, instead of DWI, it was GWF (Groping While Famous). On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times ran an exhaustive account of Arnold Schwarzenegger's wandering hands over the last 30 years, as told by six women, four of whom preferred to remain anonymous. One of the remaining two is a British TV ''personality.'' That leaves precisely one named U.S. citizen, who claims Arnold touched her left breast. In 1975. Not a lot to show for months of opposition research.

In early August, on the weekend Arnold entered the race, I wrote in the Sunday Telegraph of London that whatever they had on him had better be good: '''Womanizing' won't cut it, not for a movie star. If it's oral sex with a starlet in his trailer, the public will shrug. If it's beating up a pre-op transsexual hooker, you're in business.'' In the end, they turned up some off-the-record twice-per-decade accounts of boorish grabbing. And Arnold, in contrast to recent noted political gropers, didn't send his aides out to trash the women involved but instead gave a generous if generalized apology. The net result? No change. On Tuesday, Gray Davis will be recalled and Schwarzenegger will be elected governor. As predicted by yours truly two months ago, ''Hasta la vista, Grayby!''

Indeed, I'd reckon the Los Angeles Times' reputation is likely to suffer more long-term damage than Arnold's. If you've never read the paper, let me say that, if there's a major world-class city anywhere on the planet with a duller choice of reading material over the breakfast table, I've yet to find it. Handed an unprecedented local story, the Times has spent the entire election campaign oscillating between weary patrician disdain at the vulgarity of it all and laughable boosterism for the beleaguered governor. Only a week ago it ran a story headlined ''Aides Feel Davis May Pull It Off'' -- as his numbers continued to slide, and Schwarzenegger opened up an ever bigger lead over dim bulb Cruz Bustamante.

So things must be pretty desperate if the Times has been driven to ''go negative'' -- or, more to the point, to ''go readable.'' I never thought, for example, I'd see this line in the L.A. Times:

''Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your [blank]?''

Arnie, supposedly, to a crew member on ''Terminator 2.'' Unlike yours truly, the Times didn't leave the brackets blank. In an ingenious bit of editing, they replaced the offensive colloquialism with the precise anatomical term, and managed to make the image far more graphic. Coming upon the phrase halfway through the story, I couldn't have been more surprised if the editor had personally whispered in my ear, ''Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your brackets?'' After all, this is a paper that has never lowered itself to print many of the credibly sourced remarks attributed to President Clinton by those on the receiving end of his attentions (''You might want to put some ice on that''). But the lofty ethics bores of American journalism apparently have no problem with opening up their front page for anonymous uncorroborated accusations of ancient improper advances. In that case, did I mention the time Gray Davis grabbed me by the crotch and whispered in my ear, ''Have you ever had a man tax you up the wazoo?''

Or, if the issue is the violent grabbing of anonymous women, how about this? ''He just went into one of his rants of, 'F--- the f----ing f----, f----, f----!' I can still hear his screams ringing in my ears. When I stood up to insist that he not talk to me that way, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled. I was so stunned I said, 'Good God, Gray! Stop and look at what you are doing! Think what you are doing to me!' And he just could not stop.'' That's a former staffer of Davis, as reported by Jill Stewart in a November 1997 edition of New Times LA.

But I wouldn't put that on the front page, either. Let us stipulate that movie stars get a lot more opportunities for cheap meaningless sexual encounters than, say, newspaper columnists do, and that Arnold has availed himself of at least a proportion of these opportunities over the years. He's not my kind of Republican. He's barely any kind of Republican. But he's not at issue. The state is. Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamante couldn't grab your breasts even if they wanted to: Their hands are too full of Indian casino money and tripled car tax and giveaway driver's licenses for illegal aliens. The story here is that California is in crisis. And if it stays in the hands of its sleazy incompetent political establishment, the crisis will become terminal.

The electorate understands that; their media don't. It's CNN that, while sniffing that this election is a ''circus,'' runs tedious featurettes on the pornographers, sitcom actors and other fringe candidates. Meanwhile, the public winnowed the 130 runners down to a quartet almost immediately. Indeed, the only folks obsessed with joke candidates were the media professionals who took Arianna Huffington's campaign seriously. In the one big debate, Arianna and Arnold bickered constantly, and the pundits assured us that Arianna had bested him. The next poll showed her with 0.4 percent, and she withdrew from the race shortly thereafter. So much for media savvy. The only bottom that's an issue in this election is Gray Davis', and on Tuesday all it will be feeling is the electorate's boot.

[Brazuca]

Desperate Dems no match for Arnie

October 12, 2003

BY MARK STEYN

You gotta admire the way the media stayed on the Demo-crats' sinking California ship right to the very end. On the CNN Web site, even after Gray Davis had conceded, they were sticking to the loser's talking-points:

''Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria . . .''

CNN? Oh, that's that network with Larry King, who, like the Son of Sam, is a native of Brooklyn. Used to be owned by Ted Turner, who, like the Cincinnati Strangler, is a native of Cincinnati. Now part of Time Warner, founded by the Warner Brothers, the oldest of whom, Harry Warner, like many Auschwitz guards, was a native of Poland.

Anyway, the good news is that residents of the Golden Reich still have the right to recall their new fuhrer from his bunker in Sacramento, and he probably won't make Jews wear yellow stars and gays wear pink triangles because the fabric costs for Hollywood and San Francisco alone would double the deficit.

But even on the day after, the Dems wouldn't lay off the Nazi cracks. ''It was the triumph of the swill," said Paul Maslin, in an allusion to the late Leni Riefenstahl's Hitler-glorifying documentary ''Triumph of the Will.'' Arnold's not just a Nazi, he's Nazi garbage!

Maslin is Gray Davis' pollster. Maybe he should poll-test his jokes.

Incidentally, if there was any triumph of the swill in this election, it was surely Maslin's remarkable success in persuading so many media outlets to buy into the Gray Davis spin that their ''internal polls'' showed the race was ''tightening.'' Hence, hilarious headlines like the Washington Post's on Election Day: ''On Eve Of Vote, California Race Remains Fluid'' -- ''fluid'' in the sense that Cruz Bustamante's defeat might be merely humiliating instead of shattering?

Either Maslin was intentionally shoveling swill at the Los Angeles Times and his other chums or he's an incredibly bad pollster. Given that there were similar discrepancies between alleged Democratic ''internal polls'' and the real world in November 2002, either explanation could be valid. But the press bought the Democratic spin and in turn the Democrats bought the subsequent media spin. Both parties bolstered each other's delusions. As I wrote after last year's elections: ''Remind me never to complain about 'liberal media bias' again. Right now, liberal media bias is conspiring to assist the Democrats to sleepwalk over the cliff.''

But 10 minutes after the polls had closed, the Dems and the media were once again rocketing off to Planet Bananas. Before Election Day, the official line was that the recall was part of a pattern of hardline Republican subversion of the democratic process, going back through the Florida recount to the Clinton impeachment. In an about-turn so fast poor old DNC honcho Terry McAuliffe must have gotten whiplash, the new line was that the recall reflected a voter anger against incumbents that would spell disaster for Bush next year. And even as I lay on the floor howling with laughter, up there on CNN Judy Woodruff & Co. were taking it seriously. That would be the Judy Woodruff who, like 1970s serial killer Lendell Hunter, is a native of Augusta, Ga.

Just in case any Democrats have come back down to Planet Earth, here's what happened on Tuesday: The two Republican candidates -- Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock -- pulled 62 percent of the vote between them; the Democrat, Cruz Bustamante, got 31.7 percent. The remaining 6 percent was divided among the other 132 candidates. Just to recap: Republicans 62 percent, Democrats 31.7 percent -- in the most liberal state in the nation. As long as all those angry voters keep expressing their anger by voting for Republicans over Democrats by two to one, I think I can live with it.

At Thursday's Democratic Presidential debate, Jeff Greenfield asked the candidates why it was that only 34 percent of Americans identified themselves as Democrats -- the lowest number since before the New Deal. ''You're looking at the glass as half-empty, I look at it as half-full,'' said former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, demonstrating the command of basic math that has made the federal budget what it is. The Democratic glass isn't half-empty, it's two-thirds empty.

Let us take the Davis/Bustamante campaigns at face value: The Republicans said it was all about business and taxes and growth; the Dems said it was about whether Arnie was a Nazi sex fiend. OK, let's take that as seriously as Katie Couric and the rest of the gang did. Every day I get a gazillion e-mails screaming ''BUSH IS A NAZI!!!!'' Also Cheney, Rumsfeld, even yours truly: We're all Nazis. In California, an accident of birth gave the Democrats the opportunity to run with the Nazi hysteria literally. It flopped spectacularly.

As in 2002, they tried to motivate their base by linking the recall to the Florida recount. It flopped, again.

As in 2002, they flew in Bill Clinton to whip up the crowd, at least until the groping stories started. He flopped, again -- as he did two years ago when Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Maryland were holding their own until the Big He turned up to rally the crowd.

As always, they did the big ethnic pander, damning Republican views on illegal immigration as ''racist.'' Amazingly, even this flopped. The Hispanic vote declined to fall in line behind one of their own, and over 30 percent went for Arnie.

Nazi! Racist! Don't forget Florida! Here's Bill Clinton! It's not much of a message, is it? And, if the party's short of ideas, it's even shorter of stars. The fact that in the most populous state in the nation the two leading Democrats are Gray Davis and Cruz Bustamante is as telling as anything. The gubernatorial pool is where you look for presidential talent, and right now their only star governor is Jennifer Granholm, who can't run for president because she was born in British Columbia. That's why in Thursday's debate half the presidential candidates are sad-sack senators dulled by decades of deal-making and Beltwayspeak and the other half are goofs and oddballs. The shortage of talent is so severe they've had to parachute in Wesley Clark, a man who was playing Republican fund-raisers and waving pompons for Bush and Cheney the day before yesterday. Gen. Clark's star power seemed to have dimmed to a 30-watt bulb by Thursday. The Clark ''bandwagon'' is like those Gray Davis ''tightening'' numbers. Do you really think he'll make it through to New Hampshire?

Oh, well. If I were a Dem, I'd go with Howard Dean. Even if he loses, he'll de-Clintonize the party along the way, which ought to be the most important priority. Otherwise, it's all down to Sen. Rodham Clinton in 2008 -- or, as Paul Maslin would put it, the triumph of the Hill.

[SPINAROONI]

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON IS ONE OF THE UGLIEST BITCHES THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE DONT YOU AGREE BRAZUCA.

[Quantum]

Times change.. They ran Packwood out of office and re elected clinton and now voted Arnold in. Sadder thing is that Calif could come up with a real candidate.[/quote]

Should read could not come up with a real candidate.