After the era of Bill Clinton---and all the allegations of his groping, flashing or raping women, not to mention all the talk about his fooling around with office interns or handing out suspicious presidential pardons---I find that I've become (sadly enough) quite desensitized to much of the sleaze-talk involving the world of politics. Must be true of others too, at least those who are registered as Democrats, because Clinton (Bill, and not just Hillary) remains quite popular with a large number of them.

Kelly M. has it right. Bill Clinton returned the boardroom blowjob to the curriculum vitae of women who don't possess the intelligence to make it through the glass ceiling otherwise. And now feminists decry the sexual treatment of women by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm laughing!

Perceptive commentary Kevin. Your site is a blessing.

Kevin, perhaps Finke had another column all set to go about Arnold when Kaus broke the Oui interview and felt she had to table that in favor of a more topical column about the interview, scrambling to reach someone like Allred as the hard copy to-bed deadline passed. Or, conversely, maybe Finke had no column planned at all for this week (she seems to occasionally skip a week or two), but then felt she had to throw her hat into the Oui ring when she thought of the Allred angle on record long before next week's issue date.

Either way, my guess is the posting of the Allred interview on the web the day after L.A. Weekly's hard copy edition has more to do with the perils of a weekly production schedule. Or, as I like to call it, the "LA Business Journal blues."

Remeber how we drove Jummy Carter out of office when he told Playboy "I have lusted in my heart"? You would think that the vaklue of sexual innuendo as a political lever and as a marketing ploy for newspapers ands Website would diminish over time, or that some former purveyors would rise above it. Doesn't happen and never will, though. But just the same I think tens of millions of people are holding their nose and the rest are bored to death.

That said, I got a note from Karen Romer about her appearance on KPFK. I respect her demurrals, but for me it's sleazy to ask a rape activist about alleged behavior she has not either witnessed or been personally informed about. We can all read newspapers and go on tv talking about what we've learned, but closer examination would usually show we didn't learn much.