Groping for an issue

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns contain satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

In timing that was purely coincidental – five days before California's gubernatorial recall election – the Los Angeles Times published an article alleging boorish sexual harassment by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Times explained that a seven-week investigation turned up six women (four of whom begged and received anonymity) willing to relate unpleasant encounters in which the candidate /body-builder /movie-star /businessman grabbed them where sexual harassers usually grab.

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If the report sounded familiar, it should have. Similar articles appeared right after Arnold announced his candidacy. But give Schwarzenegger credit. He has asked absolution, making a clean breast of it, as it were.

Schwarzenegger could argue that when he fondled women he was merely trying to act presidential, which may be why Gov. Gray Davis, fighting for his political life, hasn't made more hay out of this.

Davis already has basked in the reflected glory of our former Groper in Chief, and published reports indicate he's trying to get Bill Clinton to come to California again for a final campaign push. He's also trying to get Sen. Hillary Clinton, but it seems unlikely both Bill and Hil would show up, as that might require them to be in the same city at the same time.

Other Democrats who are or may be trying to save Davis' bacon (the Davis-Bacon Act?) in the waning days of the campaign include Wesley "Call Me Ike" Clark, Rep. Dick Gephardt and Al Gore. Clark, however, might have to run over to Arkansas to change his voter registration from independent to Democrat.

Gephardt is expected to add his personal warmth to that of the governor, bringing the two of them up to room temperature, but the effect would be canceled if Gore appeared.

Alas, Arianna! Ms. Huffington, who had campaigned against the special-interest corruption of our state capital, now opposes the recall – apparently just to spite Schwarzenegger. He is not quaking at the prospect, as her support was approaching the vanishing point after the recent debate, demonstrating that when it comes time to vote, nobody really wants a limousine leftist.

Her Irrelevancy counts herself among women harassed by Arnold because he needled her during the gubernatorial debate. It is likely nobody ever had talked to Her Elegance that way, so she assumed she was picked on due to her sex. She even has averred that Arnold would not have spoken to a man the way he did to her.

In this she is like the girl who goes out for the football team and is surprised to be knocked down. Sorry, Your Specialness, but Arnold would have talked to a man that way – if any of the guys had picked a fight with him, as you did.

Get thee to a dictionary: Our Obtuse Academic Award goes this week to UCLA law professor Stuart Biegel, who was quoted in the LA Times: "Pornography is not necessarily illegal. It is only illegal if it is child pornography or obscene."

Perhaps you can discern the subtle distinction between obscene pornography and non-obscene pornography. We are at a loss.

Biegel was holding forth on a continuing controversy at California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo, where some professors have tried to ban the downloading of porn on university computers – except for research, of course. The campus' Academic Senate voted down the ban, seeing it as a free-speech issue.

If you thought the issue was using public resources to satisfy prurient impulses, another UCLA law professor, Eugene Volkh, can enlighten you: "Universities are inherently messy places and must provide maximum access to ideas, good or bad."

But while Cal Poly finds pornography OK, it doesn't like intellectually provocative material. Administrators acted quickly to discipline Steve Hinkle, president of the campus' Republican Club, after he posted a flier in the Multicultural Center, promoting a speech by African American intellectual Mason Weaver.

Weaver, you see, believes government aid "enslaves" blacks. Some black students found the flier offensive, and Hinkle – charged with disrupting a campus meeting – was ordered to write letters of apology. He has declined. He has sued.

Volkh was right to this degree: Cal Poly is an inherently – and intellectually – messy place.