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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (10951)	10/7/2003 2:13:56 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793685

The LA Times Should Apologize Too......Democrat and Professor~~Susan Estrich (Note: Susan said last night on FOX that of course she is a Registered Democrat, is a Professor, was campaign chair for McGovern, and voted for Clinton twice. Said the statute of limitations on the accusations leveled at Arnold expires after 1 year!!! Plus the dirty campaign the LA Times (and etc) ran is over the top. She will vote for Schwarzennegger today. RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2003, AND THEREAFTER creators.com It's that time in the campaign. Five days before the election, after seven weeks of digging, the Los Angeles Times has come up with "the dirt" on Arnold -- six women who claim he groped them over the last 30 years. To his credit, Arnold has apologized for "behaving badly." So should the Los Angeles Times. None of the women filed legal charges. Four of the six are quoted anonymously. Of the two who are named, one, a British television hostess, had told her story to Premiere magazine years ago, and it has been widely known and largely ignored. The other recounts an alleged incident of fondling at Gold's gym nearly 30 years ago. The anonymous incidents occurred on movie sets and consist of touching a woman's breasts in the elevator, whispering vulgarities and pulling a woman on his lap. While emphasizing that not everything in the stories was accurate, the candidate responded Thursday morning, "Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I offended people," and pledged to treat women with respect if elected governor. As a professor of sex discrimination law for the last two decades, and an expert on sexual harassment, I certainly don't condone the unwanted touchings of women that were apparently involved here. Whether they would amount to a case of sexual harassment under the legal standard that requires that harassment be severe and pervasive is far from clear. But none of these women, as the Times emphasizes, ever came forward to complain. The newspaper went looking for them and then waited until five days before the election to tell the fragments of the story. Why? If it's relevant information, why wait until the last minute to dump it on voters? If it's not relevant, why dump it at all? The rumor has been circulating for weeks that the newspaper was holding on to the "dirt" on Arnold. If this is all it came up with, maybe he's lived a cleaner life than anyone thought. What this last-minute story accomplishes is less an attack on Arnold than a smear on the press and the process. It reaffirms everything that's wrong with the political process. Anonymous charges in the closing days of a campaign from years ago undermine fair politics. Facing these charges, a candidate has only two choices. If he denies them, the story keeps building and overshadows everything you do for the final days. Arnold's fast apology is a bold gamble to make the story go away. It may or may not work. My guess is that every news organization in the state is looking for the two named women right now, even though we've all known about one of them all along (and nobody's bothered with her) and the other is recounting an episode that is nearly 30 years old. No doubt the news all over California tonight will be about Arnold's sex life, using this as an occasion to recount the old Oui magazine article and the old Premiere magazine article, and to go back and interview any other woman Arnold worked with, even if he didn't harass her. But here's my prediction, as a Californian: It's too late. People have made up their minds. This attack, coming as late as it does, from a newspaper that has been acting more like a cheerleader for Davis than an objective source, complete with polls that have shown him surviving even when everyone had him dead, running his spin as headlines, will be dismissed by most people as more Davis-like dirty politics. Is this the worst they could come up with? Ho hum. After what we've been through? Have you seen my utility bills? This is why we're likely to have a new governor next Wednesday. Even one with a history of groping. To find out more about Susan Estrich, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2003 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. Originally Published on Friday October 3, 2003