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The back story of how Arnold Schwarzenegger's Oui magazine interview about smoking hashish and having group sex got into the news is in a short L.A. Times article by Carla Hall. It all began with email to widely read L.A. political blogger Mickey Kaus from a correspondent in the Midwest. Kaus checked it out a bit, posted a short item on Kausfiles Wednesday morning and touted his "Schwarzengangbanger" exclusive by email to four other websites. From there The Smoking Gun got involved and posted the entire interview.
Now that the 1977 Oui story has been revived, there's a lot of commentary, mostly from Arnold friendlies, that a candidate's wild past sex life and drug use has become irrelevant. I hope so, but call me skeptical it would hold true for a future candidate who isn't also a movie star with a good chance to return a certain party to power. [And male.] If the Democrats are smart, they'll get as many Republicans as possible on the record saying that times have changed and it's now off-limits to delve into a candidate's past of orgies, being serviced by groupies and pot smoking.
Hugh Hewitt, the pro-Arnold radio host, adds another partisan twist on his blog. He says anyone who cares what Arnold was doing in 1977 also has to care about Cruz Bustamante's radical college politics -- "one campaign, one standard," he says. If that's true, isn't the inverse true -- that conservatives hitting on Bustamante can't justify giving Schwarzenegger a pass?
Final quip, from Steve Lopez in the LAT: "I'm beginning to see what Maria Shriver saw in Arnold. In at least one way, he kind of reminds you of the Kennedy boys."