The LA Times article reports how Schwarzenegger sat at a table full of other men, and, while they could all hear, told a waitress to go to the restroom, stick her finger in her vagina and bring it to Arnie. Worse yet, when another woman working at a studio was asked to meet Arnie, she said okay. Her female supervisor took her to a room, where, again with others watching, Arnie's opening greeting was to stick his hand up her skirt and hold onto her rear--for 20 seconds. The woman avoided Arnie subsequently. Numerous such women reported a kind of impunity within studio confines, the fear that they would be fired for embarrassing Schwarzenegger. Arnie no doubt knew they'd fear the axe for talking. Women outraged after being groped in brutally embarrassing ways by Arnie (who they scarcely even knew) were humiliated by the unwritten understanding that what happens inside the studio isn't reported outside.

For those who might compare Arnie's behavior to the contempt of a Roman emperor's golden boy for a poor anonymous peasant, for those who see a hint of aristocratic Europe (if not a residual fascist notion) in Arnie's idea that money=the right to abuse the lower classes, the question remains: Is our corporate media afraid of printing the dirty details because, to do so would mean a place further to the rear of the corporate pack?

Schwarzenegger's personally abusive attitude may be lost in our media Roman circus, which allows brute, ugly money to win out in government over basic decency--if the story isn't printed as the Times first printed it. Arnie was quick to eclipse those first articles about his actions. By making his half-apology in which he said some women were "trashing" him by telling lies, he eliminated corporate web news stories about his actions. Now we only see his apology, absent all details about the public ridicule and contempt for his victims, one of whom was married.

Would-be governor Arnold sinks beneath the litmus test for Hollywood palatibility, let alone the test of presentability in government. Like Arnold said in his apology, "where there's smoke, there's fire." His disdain for low-paid women belies a classist attitude unfit for public office. What else will he laugh about among his $%#!-faced, mum and staring peers in our state capitol?

For a man who thinks that Kindergarden Cop is grade A qualification to lead the nation's largest school system, the vote on Tuesday could be a rude awakening. Any self-respecting woman cop would have quickly arrested Arnie for his behaviors.