Why didn't LA Times Expose Gray Davis' Violence Against Women?

Washington, DC - I am no admirer of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a political leader. In fact, from the beginning of his candidacy, I have urged Californians to consider the morality of each candidate before voting on the next governor of my home state.

But I am appalled at the shocking double standard displayed by the Los Angeles Times in its exposes last Thursday and Saturday on Schwarzenegger as a serial groper. The charges, of course, go back to the days when he was a body builder. His behavior was clearly immoral and is to be condemned.

However, I note that while the Los Angeles Times is allowing itself to be used as a pawn of the Democratic Party in California to attack Schwarzenegger, it is giving Gray Davis a "Get Out Of Jail" free card on his own record of verbal and physical violence against women who worked for him.

Jill Stewart, a former writer for the left-leaning New Times LA, recently editorialized about how the Times has been sitting on volatile information about Gray Davis's treatment of women since at least 1997. She observes, "It's nothing short of journalistic malpractice when a paper mounts a last-minute attack that can make or break one of the most important elections in California history."

In the November 27, 1997, issue of New Times, LA, Stewart published "Closet Wacko Vs. Mega-Fibber." Her article detailed the bizarre behavior of Gray Davis. She noted that he has had a long-time record of physical and verbal violence against his female employees. He has hurled telephones, ashtrays, screamed the f-word repeatedly, and violently shook one of the women on his staff. She refers to Davis as an "office batterer."

Stewart quotes one former Davis staffer who says he violently shook her: "I can still hear his screams [of the f-word] 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." Another woman was so traumatized by his violence against her, she suffered an emotional breakdown and was briefly hospitalized at Cedars Sinai for a skin reaction. She never returned to work for Davis.

Stewart says that after her story ran on Davis in 1997, she discovered that the Los Angeles Times was also aware of his behavior. She spoke to a reporter on the Times and asked him why the paper was not going to expose Davis's pattern of violence against women. According to Stewart, "…he said editors at the Times were against attacking a major political figure using anonymous sources. Just what they did last week to Schwarzenegger."

The Los Angeles Times protected Gray Davis in 1997 from being exposed for violently assaulting women, while it currently attacks Schwarzenegger for allegedly sexually assaulting women. In the Times' second hit piece on Schwarzenegger that was published on October 4, three other women accused the candidate of fondling them. The leftist LA Weekly, exposed this latest attack as a Democratic Party operation.

LA Weekly reporter Bill Bradley reports that one of the three women quoted in the Los Angeles Times story came forward at the urging of Jodie Evans, a so-called peace activist and founder of a leftist group called Code Pink. Evans is a long-time friend of Gray Davis and California Democratic Party hit man Bob Mulholland. Evans is also ex-wife of businessman Max Palevsky, the man who gave Gray Davis his first job in politics as a fundraiser for Tom Bradley's 1973 mayoral campaign!

Jill Stewart notes with concern, "The paper's protection of Davis is proof, on its face, of the gross bias within the paper. If Schwarzenegger is elected governor, it should be no surprise if Times reporters judge him far more harshly than they ever judged Davis."

Of course, lost in all of this debate over the differences between a sexual groper and a man who physically and verbally abuses women, is candidate Tom McClintock who has stayed the course and is scandal free. To me, my choice is clear.

A Recall AND a Fundraiser? I'm toast.

Let's get this over with FAST. Please contribute!

LA Times Covers Up Davis Violence on Female Staff
Paper Put Two Hit Teams on Arnold, Zero Hit Team on Davis
(Oct 4, 2003)
~ By Jill Stewart
http://www.jillstewart.net/issue1004.html

I couldn't have been more shocked to see the lurid stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger and the things several women allege he uttered or did to them. But it wasn't over the allegations, which I had read much of in a magazine before. I was most shocked at the Los Angeles Times.

Some politicos dub the Thursday before a big election "Dirty Tricks Thursday." That's the best day for an opponent to unload his bag of filth against another candidate, getting maximum headlines, while giving his stunned opponent no time to credibly investigate or respond to the charges.

It creates a Black Friday, where the candidate spends a precious business day right before the election desperately investigating the accusations, before facing a weekend in which reporters only care about further accusations that invariably spill out of the woodwork.

Dirty Tricks Thursday is not used by the media to sink a campaign.

Yet the Times managed to give every appearance of trying to do so. It's nothing short of journalistic malpractice when a paper mounts a last-minute attack that can make or break one of the most important elections in California history. The Times looked even more biased by giving two different reasons for publishing its gruesome article at the last minute.

Now, there's no time left before the election to separate fact from fiction regarding incidents that happened as long as 20 and 30 years ago.

I should disclose here that I know one of Schwarzenegger's accusers. She is a friendly acquaintance. I have no idea whether she was actually man-handled.

Is it possible that my acquaintance told friends a tall tale, after meeting Schwarzenegger, because back then it made a young woman terribly exotic if one of the hottest beefcakes in the world wouldn't keep his paws off you?

I have no idea.

Or, could she be telling the truth?

I have no idea.

And neither does the Los Angeles Times.

If the Times were a tabloid, this would hardly matter. But the newspaper is influential at times, and claims it has high standards. In this case, the paper gave in to its bias against Schwarzenegger:

Here's my proof:

Since at least 1997, the Times has been sitting on information that Gov. Gray Davis is an "office batterer" who has attacked female members of his staff, thrown objects at subservients, and launched into red-faced fits, screaming the f-word until staffers cower.

I published a lengthy article on Davis and his bizarre dual personality at the now-defunct New Times Los Angeles on Nov. 27, 1997, as well as several articles with similar information later on.

The Times was onto the story, too, and we crossed paths. My article, headlined "Closet Wacko Vs. Mega Fibber," detailed how Davis flew into a rage one day because female staffers had rearranged framed artwork on the walls of his office.

He so violently shoved his loyal, 62-year-old secretary out of a doorway that she suffered a breakdown, and refused to ever work in the same room with him. She worked at home, in an arrangement with state officials, then worked in a separate area where she was promised Davis would not go. She finally transferred to another job, desperate to avoid him.

He left a message on her phone machine. Not an apology. Just a request that she resume work, with the comment, "You know how I am."

Another woman, a policy analyst, had the unhappy chore in the mid-1990s of informing Davis that a fundraising source had dried up. When she told Davis, she recounted, Davis began screaming the f-word at the top of his lungs.

The woman stood to demand that he stop speaking that way, and, she says, Davis grabbed her by her 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!'"

After my story ran, I waited for the Times to publish its story. It never did. When I spoke to a reporter involved, he said editors at the Times were against attacking a major political figure using anonymous sources.

Just what they did last week to Schwarzenegger.

Weeks ago, Times editors sent two teams of reporters to dig dirt on Schwarzenegger, one on his admitted use of steroids as a bodybuilder, one on the old charges of groping women from Premiere Magazine.

Who did the editors assign, weeks ago, to investigate Davis' violence against women who work for him?

Nobody.

The paper's protection of Davis is proof, on its face, of the gross bias within the paper. If Schwarzenegger is elected governor, it should be no surprise if Times reporters judge him far more harshly than they ever judged Davis. Jill's original story on Gray Davis' violence against female staffers is at www.windsofchange.net, scroll to Closet Wacko Vs. Mega-Fibber.

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priceless!