What’s really with Steve Smith?

Let me see, wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that Steve Smith smugly

praised Arnold Schwarzenegger for asking his wife’s OK to run for

governor? Didn’t he laud this show of respect for the actor’s wife?

Wasn’t it a good example of family values?

Now, with Schwarzenegger admitting to, and apologizing for, his

unwanted touching of women, Smith tells his kids not to believe

everything they read. How does Smith plan to explain this blatant

disrespect for Maria Shriver and the couple’s children?

It is interesting to me that Smith is usually the first to point a

righteous finger at people who don’t conform to his rigid beliefs,

i.e., parents who divorce, working mothers, etc. Yet he is quite

willing not to believe what Schwarzenegger publicly admitted doing.

SUE CLARK

Newport Beach

In an article supposedly devoted to warning kids about the

pitfalls of bad journalism, Smith says Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t

use any “euphemisms” in his apology for inappropriately touching a

handful of women. While that is a correct statement, it’s also beside

the point.

Schwarzenegger wasn’t accused of using euphemisms. He was accused

of groping women without their consent, and in some cases, laughing

in the face of a victim while surrounded by a gang of adoring

buddies.

While denigrating the accusations as “trash politics,”

Schwarzenegger’s “apology” was not, as Smith claims, devoid of

“tricky terms that people in the limelight use to escape blame.”

Instead, it was all one tricky statement. The actions he “owned up

to” were actions he says he considered “playful” at the time. A

statement that to me explicitly believes in his heart he did nothing

wrong. He makes no comment about whether any of his accusers

accurately described his behavior and just said that at some time in

the past, he thought he was being “playful.”

By implication, referring to “trash politics” and “rowdy movie

sets.” he sort of -- well -- sort of says nothing. Nothing specific.

Kids, Smith didn’t tell you these details about Schwarzenegger’s

“apology.” Schwarzenegger goes on to say “to those people that I have

offended... I am deeply sorry.” Like President Bill Clinton’s sort-of

apology years ago, he doesn’t mention his accusers by name, nor the

actual acts he is sort of apologizing for. The accusing women are

invisible, and most are 20-somethings.

Smith says four of the six allegations against Arnold should not

have been printed for lack of supporting evidence. Note that Smith

offers nothing to support this claim, and worse, makes no comment

about the two allegations he obviously thought were OK to print, or

which two were the printable allegations.

Kids, this is really bad journalism -- even for a columnist. But

since columnists aren’t really journalists, guys like Joe Bell and

Steve Smith can say almost anything, or leave out almost anything.

They can act like one big three-ring circus of repetitious fact,

opinion and omission with sideshows of slogans and labels.

Three more women have since come forward, with their names

attached, to accuse the terminator of unwanted groping. It’s the

unwanted part that’s scary. A guy like him has thousands of willing

women ready to happily receive his sturdy hands, on any given day.

The choice, desire or compulsion to do non-consensual groping,

perform crude acts, use wildly inappropriate language and laugh with

cronies about it, argues that Arnold isn’t satisfied with “yes” for

an answer from the willing, but rather gets satisfaction from besting

or humiliating the non-willing.

Kids need good people as leaders, not a coward who laughs nastily

at young women while doting male suck-ups chuckle along. And kids

don’t need apologists who easily let the Schwarzenegger’s of the

world off the hook.

You don’t give consent just because you don’t file criminal

charges.

So, Arnold isn’t a criminal. He’s disrespectful.

MARK DAVIDSON

Costa Mesa