Dear MoveOn members,

This morning the Los Angeles Times published the stories of six women who say they were physically abused by Arnold Schwarzenegger as recently as three years ago. We've included excerpts from the article at the bottom of this email. The stories are shocking, but they fit a pattern of previous reports.

We're launching a television ad devoted to putting Arnold's problem with women into the public eye. We feel that this is a critical step that absolutely must be taken, but we need $500,000 to make this happen. Please help us fund the ad campaign by clicking here:

http://www.moveonpac.org/

Then join us for these last few days of our campaign to defeat the recall. There's a lot you can do to make a difference. Sign up to help by going here:

http://moveon.org/pac/recall/

The stories published in the LA Times today are consistent with statements Schwarzenegger has made and incidents he's been involved in throughout his entire career.

If you think his personal views and behavior can be separated from his new career as a politician, think again: Schwarzenegger has not included a single woman on his economic council. In a state where there are tens of thousands of women in positions of power, there was not even one he respected enough add to his team.

Schwarzenegger has a serious problem with women, reflected in both his actions and his words. His own statements -- even just months ago -- paint a clear picture of a man who has absolutely no respect for women:

The stories revealed in the LA Times are consistent with many other cases which have been reported. Three years ago Arnold made headlines in the U.K. after a string of sexually abusive groping incidents -- one of which took place in an on camera interview. During the on-camera incident Schwarzenegger explained, "If my wife saw this I'd be in trouble, I'd have to tell her it was a stunt double."

Premiere, a respected film industry magazine, interviewed the women involved -- all reporters:

Apparently Schwarzenegger's behavior is an open secret in Hollywood. The same article quoted Hollywood insiders and Schwarzenegger colleagues saying that is typical behavior for the actor:

Arnold's problem with women is not a case of insensitive comments or inappropriate actions. It's an appalling record of disrespect and abuse of women. It would be a disgrace to women and a disgrace to all the people of California if Schwarzenegger became Governor.

The once-confusing recall election is now dramatically simple: if you don't vote against the recall, Schwarzenegger will become governor. Join us in these last few days we have to defeat the recall. Sign up here:

http://moveon.org/pac/recall/

Sincerely,

-- Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
   The MoveOn Team
   October 2, 20003

Excerpts from today's LA Times article:
(click here for the full story)

Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them
By Gary Cohn, Carla Hall and Robert W. Welkos, Times Staff Writers

"Did he rape me? No," said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger touched her breast. "Did he humiliate me? You bet he did."...

In interviews with The Times, three of the women described their surprise and discomfort when Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts. A fourth said he reached under her skirt and gripped her buttocks. A fifth woman said Schwarzenegger groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit in a hotel elevator. A sixth said Schwarzenegger pulled her onto his lap and asked whether a certain sexual act had ever been performed on her....

One of the women in the 2001 Premiere article was British television host Anna Richardson, who accused Schwarzenegger of touching her breast. In an interview with The Times, she reiterated that account... "He kept looking at my breasts, kept asking if I worked out," she said. "I went to shake his hand and he grabbed me onto his knee and he said, 'Before you go, I want to know if your breasts are real.'" She said she looked around for help from other people in the room, but nobody came to her assistance. At that point, "he circled my left nipple with his finger and he said, 'Yes, they are real.'" She said he then let her go....

The secretary, then in her 30s, said she sat on a couch opposite Schwarzenegger while the actor and her supervisor talked. When the conversation ended, the secretary said she approached Schwarzenegger to shake his hand and say goodbye. He remained seated, she said, and he slipped his left hand under her skirt and grabbed her right buttock. "He just held on. He held on and said, 'You have a very nice ass.' He said, 'I'd love to work you out.'"....

Another woman, now a wife and mother in her 30s, said she also fell in Schwarzenegger's "sight lines" while working as a crew member on 'Terminator 2' in Fontana. "I was walking on the set and Arnold called out, 'Come here, you sexy devil,' and reached out and pulled me on to his lap," the woman recalled. She said he then whispered in her ear: "Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your [anus]?" "I didn't know how to react," the woman said. "It was bizarre. What he said was so specifically sexual, it was bizarre..." After the incident, she said, she continued on her way. "I didn't fall apart," she said, but added: "It's embarrassing and degrading when you're doing a job."

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Excerpt from the July 2003 Entertainment Weekly magazine story (not available on the web):

But nothing in T3 bears Schwarzenegger's creative stamp more than his epic tussle with the Terminatrix, a battle that begins in a bathroom. The sequence was made longer and more elaborate thanks to the actor's largess--and his singular imagination.

"As we were rehearsing, I saw this toilet bowl," says Schwarzenegger, an impish smile crossing his face. "How many times do you get away with this--to take a woman, grab her upside down, and bury her face in a toilet bowl? I wanted to have something floating in there," he adds. Apparently, he was vetoed. "They thought it was my typical Schwarzenegger overboard," he says. "The thing is, you can do it, because in the end, I didn't do it to a woman--she's a machine! We could get away with it without being crucified by who-knows-what group." (Note to California's Democratic strategists: The soccer-mom set is now yours for the taking!)
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Excerpt from the March 2001 Premiere Magazine story on Arnold Schwarzenegger
"Arnold the Barbarian"
By John Connolly

Once, he was a box office terminator. But now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has lost some of his muscle in Hollywood, stories of his boorish behavior can no longer be routinely erased. Then again, he'd make a helluva politician. The tabloid press got a nice Christmas present late last year when Arnold Schwarzenegger tore through a day of publicity work in London, promoting his latest film, The 6th Day, which had just opened there. In less than 24 hours, the star was said to have attempted to, as high school boys used to say, cop a little feel from three different female talk-show hosts. The level of consternation expressed by those who received this hands-on treatment from the hulking, Austrian-born international superstar ranged from none whatsoever (Denise Van Outen of The Big Breakfast invites her guests to lie on a bed with her and, hence, probably has a rather elastic definition of what constitutes inappropriate behavior) to irked (on tape, Celebrity interviewer Melanie S ykes looks a little thrown off after Arnold gives her a very definite squeeze on the rib cage, directly under her right breast) to, finally, righteously indignant. Anna Richardson of Big Screen claims that after the cameras stopped rolling for her interview segment, Schwarzenegger, apparently attempting to ascertain whether Richardson's breasts were real, tweaked her nipple and then laughed at her objections. "I left the room quite shaken," she says. "What was more upsetting was that his people rushed to protect him and scapegoated me, and not one person came to apologize afterward."

No apologies, indeed: A subsequent statement from Schwarzenegger attorney Martin Singer characterized Richardson as someone trying to get her "15 minutes of fame." After all, why else would she create such an "outrageous fabrication" (Singer's phrase) against a married man—Schwarzenegger has been wed to NBC's Maria Shriver since 1986—a father of four, someone who ceaselessly espouses family values in the press? On the other hand, the stills of Schwarzenegger grinning as he pats Van Outen's hip or of his give-me-some-sugar-baby _expression as he tries to draw Sykes close to him are a little unsettling. Was Arnold jet-lagged? Going through a midlife crisis?

"You don't get it," says a producer who's worked with Schwarzenegger. "That's the way Arnold always behaves. For some reason, [this time] the studio or the publicists couldn't put enough pressure on the women to kill the story." Terminating bad press was once relatively easy for Schwarzenegger, who for much of the '80s and a good part of the '90s was a veritable money-making machine for the studios. And while some of his most recent films have enjoyed less-than-stellar box office performances, he is still a very huge star and one of the highest-paid actors in the world: He reportedly received $25 million for his work in the 1999 disappointment End of Days. Accordingly, Schwarzenegger films are always big-budget affairs; as such, they provide lots of jobs to lots of people and generate lots of money to lots of studio suits and other peripheral players. Arnold is not just a rich movie star; he's the straw that stirs the drinks. The sort of person, in other words, who tends to get indulged. A lot."

"The second I walked into the room," Anna Richardson says, several weeks after the incident, "he was like a dog in heat." Other stories about Schwarzenegger tend to fit her simile. During the production of the 1991 mega-blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a producer on that film recalls Arnold's emerging from his trailer one day and noticing a fortyish female crew member, who was wearing a silk blouse. Arnold went up to the woman, put his hands inside her blouse, and proceeded to pull her breasts out of her bra. Another observer says, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This woman's nipples were exposed, and here's Arnold and a few of his clones laughing. I went after the woman, who had run to the shelter of a nearby trailer. She was hysterical but refused to press charges for fear of losing her job. It was disgusting."

The full Premiere article is reprinted on the web here:
http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/000300.html
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Reuters story citing Schwarzenegger's books:

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3394868

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