Media Can't Get Over Gropegate

California's recall election may be over, but the same reporters who couldn't wait to move on after Bill Clinton was accused of a series of sexual assaults just can't seem to get over allegations that Arnold Schwarzenegger groped more than a dozen women during his Hollywood and bodybuilding days.

During his interview with the governor-elect Wednesday night, for instance, "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather was still carping about the scandalette, asking Schwarzenegger to explain what he'd do "if your wife came to you and said that some man had groped and grabbed her and she used words like disgusted, afraid, humiliated to describe how she felt."

Arnold short-circuited Rather's ploy by revealing that his wife had indeed "come to me in the past and said that."

Newsweek's Howard Fineman sees Gropegate in terms once reserved for Watergate, and contends that resolving questions about the allegations against him should be Arnold's first order of business upon taking office.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 'Grope-a-Dope' strategy - the modern version of what they used to call in the Nixon days a 'modified limited hangout' - will cause him nothing but problems," Fineman predicts.

"Now that he’s won, his first task won’t be to put together his administration but to spell out of the rest of his story."

Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, who had to be reeled in three years ago after she insisted on holding a major Al Gore fund raiser at the Playboy Mansion, predicted that Arnold will continuue to grope his way through office. "Usually, if a person has that kind of behavior, they'll continue to do it, even if they're governor or president or anybody else," she warned on CNN.

As far as USA Today is concerned, the Gropegate brouhaha, at the very least, constitutes "a major distraction for a state whose problems deserve concentrated attention.

"More fundamentally," says the paper, "it raises doubts about the future governor's character, judgment and adherence to laws against harassment and assault."

Back when President Clinton was accused of everything from indecent exposure to aggravated sexual assault, the media excused their disinterest by citing polls that showed Americans didn't care.

Well, Californians went to the polls on Tuesday and apparently sent the same message. Only this time the press isn't listening.

Fine. Arnold should tell these inquiring minds that he'll clear the air on Gropegate just as soon as Mr. Clinton tells the nation once and for all whether he raped Juanita Broaddrick.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
California Governor's Race
DNC

Editor's note:
Arnold fans – check out the new Terminator for Governor T-shirts – Click Here