The Shoe drops here, as foreshadowed in the eerily prescient item below. Initial reactions: 1) It seems hard to question the truthfulness of the the complaining women found by the Times--at least 5 of the 6, anyway. And it would be a big mistake for the Schwarzenegger people to try to discredit them, I should think. 2) The A.S. behavior described is ugly, along the lines of what we'd been led to expect. It's ugly in a particular way: he's not a normal horny groper. He seems to have always enjoyed using his star power to humiliate people on occasion. Note: He does it to men too, as the LAT reported on Monday. 3) It would in fact be good to have had more reporting on his bullying of men, to put the 'he disrespects women' charge in perspective. Maybe he disrespects everyone when he's in the mood and can get away with it. 4) Do the incidents fit the technical definition of sexual harrassment? At least two--involving crew members--seem like good candidates. Another incident, on a street, might be some sort of assault. More legal analysis, please! There's one second-day story. 5) Not that it excuses anything, but prominent national Democrats (and I'm not just talking Bill Clinton) have been accused of not-entirely-dissimilar behavior in the course of their careers. 6) Not that it excuses anything, but there must have been many, many times when this sort of groping "worked" for him--something the Times, to its credit, hints at; 7) Maybe he has an alcoholic father and Warren Beatty can leap in to defend him; 8)Will it sink him? I tend to think no, not this by itself. But maybe conservative Tom McClintock had an unstated reason for not dropping out; 9) Should it sink him? Ask me tomorrow, after the prudish shock has worn off and I've defined deviancy down for a few more hours. ... 3:50 A.M.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089035/
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