LA Times last minute hit piece

The estimable Mickey Kaus predicted Tuesday that the long-anticipated LA Times hit piece on Arnold would have to run Wednesday to have any effect (Shoe-Drop Day tomorrow?):

Tomorrow would be about the logical last day for the Los Angeles Times to drop its bomb on Arnold Schwarzenegger. If editor John Carroll waits any longer it will look like a late hit designed to stampede the electorate.

And sure enough, Kaus has his finger on the pulse of the Times, as we see from the breath-takingly bizarre string of allegations of decades-old groping incidents reported by the always-reliable anonymous complainers:

Four of the six women told their stories on condition that they not be named. Three work in Hollywood and said they were worried that, if they were identified, their careers would be in jeopardy for speaking out against Schwarzenegger, the onetime bodybuilding champion and box-office star who is now the front-runner in the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election.

The other unnamed woman said she feared public ridicule and possible damage to her husband’s business.

In the four cases in which the women would not let their names be published, friends or relatives said that the women had told them about the incidents long before Schwarzenegger’s run for governor.

None of the six women who gave their accounts to The Times filed any legal action against him.

Is this a new journalistic low for the Times or what? It’s bad enough they’re so desperate to keep Davis in office they fudge a poll by overloading it with members of groups favorable to Davis, but when you offer a platform to anonymous sources to complain about thirty-year-old tit-squeezing incidents you’ve sunk to a level considerably lower in the credibility department than your average rad-fem blog.

Do they really think anybody is going to be fooled by this?

UPDATE: Arnold apologizes for mistreating women, at the same time that he denies these particular charges. The man clearly has some good advisers on the sexual stuff, probably on the Kennedy side. This was probably the right way to play it, and you’d expect it to be well-played given how long the rumors have been circulating. It strikes me that this story hurts the LA Times more than it hurts Arnie.