Media Can't Get Over Gropegate
California's recall election may be over, but the same reporters
who couldn't wait to move on after Bill Clinton was accused of a series of
sexual assaults just can't seem to get over allegations that Arnold
Schwarzenegger groped more than a dozen women during his Hollywood and
bodybuilding days.
During his interview with the governor-elect Wednesday night, for instance,
"CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather was still carping about the scandalette,
asking Schwarzenegger to explain what he'd do "if your wife came to you and said
that some man had groped and grabbed her and she used words like disgusted,
afraid, humiliated to describe how she felt."
Arnold short-circuited Rather's ploy by revealing that his wife had indeed
"come to me in the past and said that."
Newsweek's Howard Fineman sees Gropegate in terms once reserved for
Watergate, and contends that resolving questions about the allegations against
him should be Arnold's first order of business upon taking office.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 'Grope-a-Dope' strategy - the modern version of what
they used to call in the Nixon days a 'modified limited hangout' - will cause
him nothing but problems," Fineman predicts.
"Now that he’s won, his first task won’t be to put together his
administration but to spell out of the rest of his story."
Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who had to be reeled in three years
ago after she insisted on holding a major Al Gore fundraiser at the Playboy
Mansion, predicted that Arnold will continuue to grope his way through office.
"Usually, if a person has that kind of behavior, they'll continue to do it, even
if they're governor or president or anybody else," she warned on CNN.
As far as USA Today is concerned, the Gropegate brouhaha, at the very least,
constitutes "a major distraction for a state whose problems deserve concentrated
attention.
"More fundamentally," says the paper, "it raises doubts about the future
governor's character, judgment and adherence to laws against harassment and
assault."
Back when President Clinton was accused of everything from indecent exposure
to aggravated sexual assault, the media excused their disinterest by citing
polls that showed Americans didn't care.
Well, Californians went to the polls on Tuesday and apparently sent the same
message. Only this time the press isn't listening.
Fine. Arnold should tell these inquiring minds that he'll clear the air on
Gropegate just as soon as Mr. Clinton tells the nation once an for all whether
he raped Juanita Broaddrick.
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