Win One for the Groper (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 10/05/03 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON

Well, there goes the Jewish women's vote.

Twin revelations of Arnold Schwarzenegger's groping and goose-stepping are not going to play well with some Californians. The androgynous Gray spent the weekend hissing at Arnold's excess testosterone, as Arnold tried a rope-a-grope strategy.

The governor had to be singing "Danke Schön" over tales of the Austrian's 70's foolery: playing Nazi marching songs; clicking his heels and pretending to be an SS officer; clowning as Hitler with comb as mustache; and praising the dictator's ambition and oratorical skills. A Davis aide slyly wondered if Mel Brooks was Arnold's campaign manager.

When I was in California, Democrats said that as soon as Mr. Schwarzenegger went up in the polls, the Davis camp was prepared to blast him on women and "play it out in all its seamy glory," as one well-connected Hollywood Democrat said.

When the star's female accusers were recycled in the L.A. Times, Democratic women's groups — already in full cry against Arnold for being boorish despite his un-Bushian moderate stances on women's issues — howled even louder. They rejected his apology and explanation that he was just being "playful" when he grabbed several left breasts out of left field over the decades.

Even before the latest charges, Hillary Clinton, by phone, and Ann Richards and the lawyer Gloria Allred, in person, joined Governor Davis at a bristly rally in West Hollywood with 200 female activists, including contingents from NOW and Planned Parenthood, chanting about Arnold's sins.

At the Davis rally, Senator Clinton chose not to defend the groper who was not her husband. Ms. Richards chose not to defend the groper who was not a Democrat; in 1998, the former Texas governor shrugged off Mr. Clinton's louche behavior: "If we try to retire every man from office who's done what he did, we wouldn't need affirmative action."

Now Republicans who thundered against Bill — not Arnold, who scorned impeachment as a waste of time and money — argue that peccadilloes are not relevant to governing. And feminists who backed Bill are ushering Arnold gropees up to the Democratic microphones.

Cheekbones jutting, Maria Shriver played the Tammy Wynette-Hillary role with nerve and verve, reassuring Republican women in Newport Beach: "You can listen to the people who have never met Arnold, or who met him for five seconds 30 years ago. Or you can listen to me."

Certainly, the bodybuilder-turned-phenom has had moments of being, to use David Letterman's word, a lunkhead. But I find the selective outrage of feminists just as offensive.

Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton against Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones by saying he had merely made clumsy passes, then accepted rejection, so there was no sexual harassment involved. As to his dallying with an emotionally immature 21-year-old, Ms. Steinem noted, "Welcome sexual behavior is about as relevant to sexual harassment as borrowing a car is to stealing one."

Surely what's good for the Comeback Kid is good for the Terminator.

It was no surprise on Friday that Mr. S was backing off his promise to release those "Springtime for Hitler" outtakes from George Butler's 1977 documentary "Pumping Iron." No dummy, he knew years ago his "Nazi stuff" could be trouble. He bought up the incriminating evidence, 100 hours of histrionic interviews, for a mil, and worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, giving it a mil in guilt gilt.

I asked my friend Leon Wieseltier, who knows a lot about Judaism and politics and women, about Arnold.

"Schwarzenegger is obviously not anti-Semitic or an admirer of genocide," he said. "Hitler does not appear to have been his moral ideal, but his business model. His old fondness for the Führer is just another expression of the animating principle of his life and movies: the worship and steady acquisition of power. Sacramento is simply the biggest Hummer he can buy."

Or, if Maria is right, Arnold will be a "smart, innovative, disciplined, determined . . . can-do" leader, trying to give something back to the state where he arrived penniless.

Besides, if we ever hear the "Horst Wessel Song" drifting from Governor Schwarzenegger's office in Sacramento, there's always the blitzkrieg option: the recall of the recall.

[Hugin]

Cheekbones jutting, Maria Shriver played the Tammy Wynette-Hillary role with nerve and verve,

MEEEOOWWW!! HISS!!!!!!

Getting a little catty there Maureen.

Has she gotten over Michael? I think she wouldn't mind being groped by Arnold herself.

[Pukin Dog]

Were a man to have ever groped Hillary Clinton, an alien mouth would appear wherever she was touched to bite off the offending hand. All those lumps on her ass, are really the hands of gay men who though it safe to give her a pat.

[Pukin Dog]

Like a stopped clock, Maureen gets one right.

[Dante3]

Someone on another post suggested a article about Clinton helping Davis should be titled "Win one for the raper."

[Maria S]

"It was no surprise on Friday that Mr. S was backing off his promise to release those "Springtime for Hitler" outtakes from George Butler's 1977 documentary "Pumping Iron." No dummy, he knew years ago his "Nazi stuff" could be trouble. He bought up the incriminating evidence, 100 hours of histrionic interviews, for a mil, and worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, giving it a mil in guilt gilt."

Ms. Dowd must have written this before the following came out. My FAVORITE line in the following column: "I am amazed that something like that escaped me."

NY Times Retracts Arnold Hitler Bombshell

Saturday Oct. 4, 2003; 10:39 a.m. EDT

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/10/4/105622.shtml

The New York Times issued a defacto retraction on Saturday after misreporting two days earlier that Arnold Schwarzenegger once said he admired Adolf Hitler for what he did with his power.

In early Friday editions, the so-called paper of record quoted the California gubernatorial front-runner as saying, "I admire [Hitler] for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it." Schwarzenegger's critics used the toxic quote to suggest he approved of the Holocaust.

But an actual transcript of outtakes from Schwarzenegger's 1975 bodybuilding classic "Pumping Iron" shows that what the actor actually said was exactly the opposite: "I didn't admire [Hitler] for what he did with it."

The incendiary Schwarzenegger quote was corrected by the film's producer George Butler during an interview Friday where he admitted he misquoted the GOP frontrunner in a 1997 book proposal.

Butler told the Times that the error stemmed from the fact that the book proposal quote, which was widely circulated after the Times and ABC News published the bogus story, had "dropped a few words."

The full and corrected Schwarzenegger quote, which was printed by the Times on Saturday, went like this:
"In many ways I admired people — It depends for what. I admired Hitler for instance because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. And I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for his way of getting to the people and so on.

"But I didn't admire him for what he did with it. It is very hard to say who I admired and who are my heroes. And I admired basically people who are powerful people, like Kennedy. Who people listen to and just wait until he comes out with telling them what to do. People like that I admire a lot."

Butler couldn't explain how he made the mistake, telling the Times, "I am amazed that something like that escaped me."

But what's perhaps more amazing is that the Times, ABC News and the rest of the mainstream press ran wih a bogus story they knew could severly damage Schwarzenegger's reputation without verifying the poisonous quote.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Since the whole thing is based on a quote the Times now admits was... uh, "sexed-up" (Arnold actually said something like he did "not admire Hitler and what he did" and the Times dropped the "not" -- which Dowdy would not have known, but her editors would have done, because the Times buried a correction deep in the same issue this column ran it. Sweet, huh?

Anybody else think that the new, photoshopped-to-death image of Dowd that runs with her column was styled after the upper left Zeta-Jones image in the collage?

But then, who thought this barren harridan would have written this: "But I find the selective outrage of feminists just as offensive. ...Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton.... I am astonished by finding myself, probably for the first time, agreeing with something this lightweight wrote. Both the Republicans who flip-flopped on this, and the Dems, are shameful. What, no principles.

On the other hand, there is a small but crucial difference between allegations coming from identified persons in the form of sworn testimony, and allegations coming from a newspaper that has thrown objectivity to the wind and joined one side, and that prints no names and allows no defence. (I refer here to the LA Times branch of the DNC. As opposed to the NY Times branch now before us).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Cicero]

Not only does Mo seem to have missed the Times's retraction of the Hitler story, but the editors seem to have missed it too when they let her print this lying POS.

[Cousin Eddie]

I'm going to sue Dowd. She must be a FR lurker. I coined that phrase a few days ago in a couple of posts, and as I said then, I would gladly carry signs at Davis and Bustamonte rallies urging people to 'Win one for the Groper'.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Will somebody, ANYBODY, just please have sex with that woman so she can calm down?

Unfortunately she has reached that stage in a woman's life where she no longer has youth or beauty to attract a man. This is the point where a good woman holds a man by strength of character, and a man counts his blessings for having stayed with her long enough to learn that there was much more to her than youth and beauty.

See, if you don't build the foundation, there is nowhere to put up the house...

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

Not only does Mo seem to have missed the Times's retraction of the Hitler story, but the editors seem to have missed it too...

I wonder if they, too, find her stuff too turgid to read carefully...

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[DoctorZIn]

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[tet68]

Unfortunately she has reached that stage in a woman's life where she no longer has youth or beauty to attract a man.

Or as the punch line of that old joke goes," You'd be surprised what a boy scout will do for a swiss army knife..."

Mo,"Raises high the banner....." of the socialdemocratworkersparti.

[Ol' Sparky]

Hard to argue with this:

Now Republicans who thundered against Bill — not Arnold, who scorned impeachment as a waste of time and money — argue that peccadilloes are not relevant to governing. And feminists who backed Bill are ushering Arnold gropees up to the Democratic microphones.

[freekitty]

It sounds like Michael Douglas, like the ex prez, tosses woman in the trash after they get what they want.

[The Raven]

>>They love Socialism.

Yes, but they can't figure out why the head guy ends up killing everybody (Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Hitlet, etc, etc.