Dionne: Where's the outrage NOW

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6317-2003Oct9.html
Where's the Outrage Now?

By E. J. Dionne
Friday, October 10, 2003; Page A27



Guess who the apologists were this time? All of a sudden it was Arnold Schwarzenegger being accused of groping, fondling and humiliating women. Oh, yes, there was outrage on the right. But it was directed at the Los Angeles Times for investigating and reporting on the charges. The same folks who had insisted that our leaders should be moral exemplars were suddenly aghast when a news organization explored the "character" of, well, er, a Republican. Fox's Bill O'Reilly on Schwarzenegger: "The Los Angeles Times is out to get him, to destroy him. . . . Most guys have done dopey things with women." Bill O'Reilly on Clinton during impeachment: "The American people have a right to know everything there is to know about President Clinton's behavior."


You get the sneaking feeling that the right may come to regret this deal with The Terminator. Yes, his victory was a triumph over incompetent Democrats who should never have allowed things to come to this. The World Series of Recrimination is a coming Democratic attraction. But Schwarzenegger's campaign was a rebuke to partisans of the Republican right, and not only because they had to eat tens of thousands of their own words about sex and morality. They were also forced to buy into a political strategy they had rejected in the past.

As for the Times, it was correct to run its groping story before the election, but far better had it been published a week or two earlier. Voters have made clear their sensible preference that the sex lives of politicians be treated as private matters unless an overwhelming case is made for going public. In this case, Californians were not given time to decide whether this report was more about sex or more about something closer to battery. Even with additional time, an electorate desperate for change might still have made the same choice it did on Tuesday. But by being able to dismiss the charges as a last-minute hit, Schwarzenegger evaded their public implications.

Conservatives might reasonably argue that Clinton's success in beating impeachment and Arnold's election both represent the triumph of the Permissive Society. But this week, conservatives themselves were complicit in its victory. Mark Oct. 7, 2003, as the day conservatives' moral outrage died.

postchat@aol.com if you want to respond.

and he's right that those charges should've come out a few weeks earlier, so timing wouldn't have been an issue.

O'Reilly gets worse and worse. Maybe he thinks he can take over Rush's pack hounds, so he is skewing ever further to the hateful, far right wing. Bill Bennett, Rush Limbaugh - hypocrites all. Human weaknesses are not great failings, but these clowns would destroy anyone facing the same problems they face, should those individuals dare disagree with them. Those ARE great failings. I still think Coulter has some sort of problem, too. We'll see.

I think there may be a mention of this on Coulter in David Brock's book........have to check it out.