What’s the difference, some ask? Item one: Clinton was faced with actual civil lawsuits, claiming sexual harrassment. Once private life gets dragged into the courts, the press has no option but to cover it. Item two: most of Clinton’s sexual targets were women who worked for him or were under his direct authority. Some of Arnold’s targets were on movie sets where he certainly had social power but where he was, as far as I know, not the owner or direct boss. Item three: none of Arnold’s incidents involve actual sex, or exposure of sex organs, or alleged rape, whereas Clinton’s did. Item four: Arnold has fessed up. Clinton lied under oath. Item five: Arnold hasn’t exactly gone around saying he is a champion of women’s rights and the dignity of women. Clinton did. Item six: all of Arnold’s incidents were one-off. Clinton, for the most part, pursued the same women over time. That said, they’re not entirely different. If Clinton hadn’t had to deal with a lawsuit or two, I’d have had a very similar response. In fact, in the early days, I refused to cover the Gennifer Flowers stuff at the New Republic for exactly those reasons. But when the lawsuits occurred and the full extent of Clinton’s abuse of public office for sexual harrassment purposes became clear, I think the situation changed. Clinton used state troopers and federal buildings to abuse and manipulate women. So far, Arnold has been a private citizen. Moreover, after the early Sixty Minutes interview where Clinton telegraphed that all this was over, I was more than happy to let this stuff pass (remember I endorsed Clinton in 1992). But it was when it was apparent that he had lied in that interview and continued his lies and sexual abuse in office that I realized we had a sociopath in the White House. So here’s a promise: if Arnold gets elected and any of these incidents recur, I’ll hammer him. Until then, his honesty, apology and promise get him a pass from me. May the Eagle win.
THE LEFT AND INTELLIGENCE: Fantastic quote from a “feminist” activist at the anti-Arnold rally yesterday. Film producer and Codepink activist Patricia Foulkrod explained why she was so fervently pro-Clinton and so outraged by Arnold:
“The difference is that Clinton was so brilliant… If Arnold was a brilliant pol and had this thing about inappropriate behavior, we’d figure a way of getting around it. I think it’s to our detriment to go on too much about the groping. But it’s our way in. This is really about the GOP trying to take California in 2004 and our trying to stop it.”
Ah. The principles of liberalism today. I’m constantly amazed at how so many of the new class left believe that intelligence is the supreme human virtue. I guess this is because being smart has been their own ticket to power, wealth, etc. If I had a dollar for every liberal friend who couldn’t vote for Bush because he’s so “dumb”, I’d be as rich as Terry McAuliffe. And during the Clark boomlet, I kept hearing, “But he’s so smart.” As if that were a sufficient argument for electing a president. And then when you ask the same liberals if they approve of intelligence testing or whether people sould get into college on the basis of test scores, they look horrified. Go figure.
GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ: In Kirkuk, the future has never looked brighter, thanks to the coalition.
DISCUSSING LAWRENCE: The chief lawyer for the winning side in Lawrence vs Texas discusses the issues of the case at the Cato Institute. It’s a video.
DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Surely one factor in the rise of prison rape – which I feel sure was wellnigh unknown a generation ago – has been the striking down of the very strong social taboo on male-male buggery. This taboo was universal across all cultures, primitive and civilized, and even including those that tolerated male-male erotic bonding, until the rise of the “gay rights” movement in the modern West. I’m not saying that this is the only factor, or even the major factor, but it must surely be **a** factor.” – John Derbyshire, National Review Online. Even for Derbyshire, this is a stretch. Male-male rape and sex in prisons, boarding schools, and coerced all-male environments has been so widely researched, discussed and reported across cultures and centuries that the notion that prison rape is somehow connected to the rise of gay rights is just bizarre. Much of this behavior is either a function of power-structures in prison, committed by heterosexuals against heterosexuals, or a way to vent sexual needs in a context where no women are present. When there’s a homosexual subtext, it’s almost always driven by hatred of fags, and a desire to humiliate the rape-victim. The notion that a movement to raise awareness of homosexual dignity is somehow a cause of men committing violence against other men because of their perceived homosexuality (or any other reason) is just nuts. It could only occur to someone so consumed by fear and hatred of homosexuals that he has to find a way to attack them in any context he can.
The Dish 