Six Women’s Allegations Against Schwarzenegger

Re “Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them,” Oct. 2: Evidently there is a major disconnect between Arnold Schwarzenegger and his staff. Schwarzenegger stated Thursday: “Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right, which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I offended people.”

However, Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh had denied the women’s allegations in comments to The Times, saying the actor had not engaged in improper conduct toward women. Walsh said the claims were a political attack in the days leading up to the Oct. 7 recall election.

Tom Hamman

Huntington Beach

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How utterly shameful that The Times would publish a smutty hit piece on Schwarzenegger just days before the election. The story of the six women, four of them unnamed, was cynically timed to do maximum damage with minimum chance of rebuttal. This is shoddy journalism taken to a new dimension. Transparently political desperation is not worthy of a world-class newspaper.

Mele Bond

Oak Hills

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Arnold claims his groping of women young enough to be his daughters was playful. Any woman who has suffered the indignity of having her breasts stared at by a man in authority knows perfectly well that this ploy is one that brings power to the man and degradation to the woman. It sickens me to think that any self-respecting woman, Republican or Democrat, would vote him into public office.

Kathy Price

Arroyo Grande

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Your front-page headline, less than a week before the election, claims Arnold groped women -- how convenient! Back on the front page of the California section is the fact that the state budget is falling apart, a far more important issue to the voters of this state. Put the news where it belongs. It seems to me The Times is turning into a tabloid.

Wayne Lee

Ontario

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What a pathetic attempt at mudslinging your article was! Any straight-thinking reader can tell the difference between a private figure and a public one. What he did in his private life, long before he decided to run for office, has no bearing on the candidate today.

Patti Bean

Victorville

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Are we really supposed to be shocked and appalled at Arnold’s “groping”? After Bill Clinton? By minimizing and neutralizing women’s allegations (who, by the way, gave their names and tried to file charges), Clinton and the Democrats have lowered the bar so much that almost anything goes. Sexual behavior has been made irrelevant to getting elected. This is obviously your attempt to torpedo Schwarzenegger, concluding the big investigation six days before the election. Nice try -- pre-Clinton, it just might have worked.

Karen McCarthy

Claremont

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It seems that Schwarzenegger combines the arrogance of George W. Bush with the womanizing of Clinton. How lucky can California get?

Ila Harris

San Dimas

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With multiple allegations that Schwarzenegger gropes women at will, and his admission that he had group sex and smoked hashish, what does that say about Republicans who claim to be the party of family values? They aren’t.

John C. Wood

Pasadena

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The guys on NPR’s “Car Talk” once said that men buy four-wheel-drive vehicles because they give them a sense of power that they do not have in their ordinary lives. I’ve been told that trains will never replace planes as a form of transportation because they have no sex appeal to men.

Now the current revelation that Schwarzenegger groped women ensures him the election, as powerless men in a middle-classless society want to feel rich -- and rich men can drive Hummers, get their hair dyed, their nails done and grope women with impunity. They do not want to identify with the other guy, who is fat, bald, lives in an ordinary town and has an ordinary-looking wife.

Roger Newell

San Diego

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I think it is pretty arrogant that Schwarzenegger is planning his first 100 days (Oct. 2).

Seems to me that he is saying that our votes don’t count, he has already bought the election. What does that mean once he might be in office?

Kris Mazure

Cathedral City