Right Hook

Did Dems conspire to take down both Arnold and Rush? The right gropes for the moral high ground on the recall, bemoans Limbaugh's worst week, and dissects Bush's woes.

By Mark Follman

Oct 8, 2003 | To call the California recall a "circus" at this point would dishonor the big top. After the L.A. Times ran a cover story featuring accusations from numerous women that Arnold Schwarzenegger had engaged in outrageous sexual behavior, conservatives became positively apoplectic. In a weekend blog entry, FrontPage Magazine editor in chief David Horowitz pronounced California Democrats and the Times' editors worthy of eternal torment.

"If there is a hell, it's a sure thing that the leaders of the California Democratic Party and Gray Davis are going there in a hand basket ... along with the evil editors of the LA Times. The front page lead story in [Saturday's] paper trumpets Davis's slimey attack on Arnold Schwarzenegger based on the latest hate rumors dredged up from the Democrats' gossip mills and featured as news stories in the Times: 'If true, [Schwarzenegger's] personal behavior was disturbing and unacceptable and his professed admiration for Adolf Hitler unconscionable,' Davis said."

Horowitz gives Arnold a pass because of the statute of limitations, because he plays nice by Hollywood standards, and because of Democratic hypocrisy:

"Where to begin? The 'politics of personal destruction'? McCarthyite associations from an ancient past? The tabloid garbage which Davis and the Times are working off is years and sometimes decades old. [Arnold] pinched an actress in Hollywood? That makes him a boy scout by industry standards. This is the town whose liberals give Academy Awards to their heroes who drug thirteen-year-olds and rape them. Not to mention Davis's own friend and chief promoter who in the White House poked a 20-year-old intern in the groin with a cigar, groped a widow and probably raped a nurse before that. And was defended by every Democratic pol, male and female alike, shrieking -- 'it's his private life! it has nothing to do with being President!' -- etc., etc."

The revelations about Schwarzenegger's sordid sexual history also stoked near-religious fervor at American Digest. The blog has a diatribe by poster Gerard Van der Leun, who argues that the media has now set up impossible moral standards for candidates:

"The California Recall Fornication Festival currently climaxing in minute-by-minute updates throughout the nation instructs us yet again in what our media expects of candidates: pseudo moral celibacy in thought, word, and deed stretching from the cradle to the grave ... To be elected today a man (or a woman) must prepare at an early age to either leave no trace of a human existence, or determine never to have one in the first place. Like the pagan religions of antiquity or the cloistered Catholic orders that persist into our era, today's politicians must be -- according to our media -- the last surviving virgins over 18 in the United States of America."

Not everyone on the right defended the Republican candidate. California-based political consultant and National Review contributor Arnold Steinberg found the excuses made for the strongman actor laughable:

"And now, Hitler! Real people want to know, did Arnold grope Leni Riefenstahl? 'Arnold admired Hitler for the way he acquired power,' observed Charles Krauthammer Sunday on Fox. 'He's after power for his own sake.' The columnist remains properly troubled that Arnold toasted Arnold-Maria wedding guest Kurt Waldheim after he was outed as a Nazi. That disturbing fact was barely covered. (Arnold has since repudiated the toast.) Krauthammer notes: 'Obviously Arnold is not a Nazi [and] has promoted Jewish causes.' Recall that decades ago, when asked whether President Eisenhower was (as John Birchers had suggested) a Communist, conservative icon Russell Kirk replied: 'Eisenhower's not a Communist. He's a golfer.' Are they saying Arnold's not a Nazi, he's a groper?"

In a hearty endorsement of Tom McClintock for governor, R. Scott Moxley, news editor of the Orange County Weekly, said the real issue is the California economy, stupid:

"Each election season in California, the biggest weapon in the Democratic arsenal is a negative punch: "Vote for us. At least, we're not those women-hating, gun-loving, environment-spoiling, homophobic nuts from the other party." Bustamante is still learning to handle this weapon; Davis has mastered it. But voters should for once resist the gimmick, temporarily set aside the urge to solve every social concern that isn't life-or-death -- and admit that the most critical problem facing California is the government's unprecedented financial disasters."

While Rush takes the Fifth, the Standard turns on him
Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who resigned last week from his post at ESPN Sunday morning football after saying that the media has overrated QB Donovan McNabb because he is black, sees evidence of a conspiracy to take Arnold down -- but he calmed the fears of a caller concerned that the chief Dittohead's own woes might be part of the same nefarious plot.

"I have received a lot of e-mails from people who share your concerns about this, that this is an orchestrated attack. In the Schwarzenegger case, it may be. I mean, the L.A. Times had this information for the longest time. They even said, well, you know, it took us seven weeks to assemble all of this, and here you've got, I think if I have this right, Arianna Huffington somewhere parading on television with one of these babes -- this happened 30 years ago -- trying to make it sound like it happened yesterday. So there's no evidence that there's an attempt here, some coordinated effort to destroy Schwarzenegger's candidacy out there.

"This ESPN thing, you're going to have to trust me. This is a self-contained, independent moment and item that is directly traceable to an event that happened last Sunday that took a couple of people two days to react to. But I don't think the Philadelphia sportswriters were called by Terry McAuliffe or other Democratic operatives and say, 'You know, we need you to distract Limbaugh this week. Maybe humiliate him by getting him canned at ESPN so we can pull some chicanery here in the Schwarzenegger camp.' I don't think that that happened. I think I'm involved in a stand-alone, independent circumstance here. But clearly there are undertones of some sort of coordinated activity where Arnold is concerned."

As for the controversy swirling over his alleged illegal use of painkillers, Limbaugh asked his fans for patience while he tries to figure out what's going on:

"I really don't know the full scope of what I am dealing with. And when I get all the facts, when I get all the details of this, rest assured that I will discuss this with you and tell you how it is, tell you everything there is, maybe more than you want to know about this. You can believe me and trust me on that. I don't want to answer any questions about it now, as I say, until I know exactly what I'm dealing with, and at that point I will fill you all in...

"I've often said throughout the 15 years that I've been here, that you people have made my life an adult Christmas every day. Every morning is an adult Christmas, and it's still the same. Still got up today, couldn't wait to get in here, couldn't wait to start the routine, couldn't wait to start the show prep. I'm a little frustrated that I haven't yet gotten to the bottom of what all this is about, and I'm very much desirous of telling you about this, but until I know exactly what this is -- and I don't get -- it just makes no sense to start delving into it."

Next Page: The Weekly Standard spanks Limbaugh and Bush

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