What’s the Austrian word for ‘hush money’?

August 12, 2005

It’s been weeks since we last heard about a scandal regarding Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), so I guess we were due. The one that ran on the front page of today’s LA Times, like so many of the others, paints a pretty disturbing picture.

Days after Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped into the race for governor and girded for questions about his past, a tabloid publisher wooing him for a business deal promised to pay a woman $20,000 to sign a confidentiality agreement about an alleged affair with the candidate.

American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, signed a friend of the woman to a similar contract about the alleged relationship for $1,000.

American Media’s contract with Gigi Goyette of Malibu is dated Aug. 8, 2003, two days after Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy on a late-night talk show. Under the agreement, Goyette must disclose to no one but American Media any information about her “interactions” with Schwarzenegger.

American Media never solicited further information from Goyette or her friend, Judy Mora, also of Malibu, both women said. The Enquirer had published a cover story two years earlier describing an alleged seven-year sexual relationship between Goyette and Schwarzenegger during his marriage to Maria Shriver, California’s first lady.

American Media loves running stories about a star and an adulterous affair and did so when it first learned of Schwarzenegger’s relationship with Goyette. When Schwarzenegger began a candidate for governor, and news outlets started learning about Schwarzenegger’s voracious appetites, it seemed like a prime time for American Media to revisit the story it helped break.

Instead, American Media’s publisher, a Schwarzenegger ally, paid the accuser and her friend, and kept the story quiet. Shortly thereafter, American Media put out a 120-page magazine celebrating Schwarzenegger as an embodiment of the “American dream.” And then, just two days before he was sworn into office, Schwarzenegger and American Media struck a lucrative business arrangement.

So, how will Schwarzenegger’s career formally end? Does he announce that he’s not running for re-election, or does he get beat in a GOP primary next year?

Man. The Kennedy family must be soooooooooo happy with Maria these days.

  • I’m not sure I see the problem here–besides the actual endorsement deal being a conflict of interest. And while that can be a problem (since it is illegal, after all) I could see him simply making public amends and moving on.

    I’m also somewhat of a fan—here’s a guy who’s a Republican governor, takes all the GOP support he can get, and then flies right in the face of BushCo policy. California passed a 3 Billion dollar bond issue for stem cell research that will probably ensure California becomes and remains the science capital of the world for some time—and don’t forget, one of the main anti-stem cell talking points is that no cures have come about. As ridiculous as that logic clearly is, having a couple cures would ensure public sentiment remains strongly positive. He took on the ridiculous Democratic-controlled gridlock in Sacramento with hard-hitting tactics, and he only made one stop with Bush in 2004 (and for how much the GOP gives him, he really jerked them around on that). Isn’t he unabashedly pro-choice, too?

    Would you rather have another Gray Davis type Dem governor? The kind you don’t hear about until they’re being recalled for a “crisis� that was caused by a corrupt company with ties to the White House, and then exacerbated by Dick Cheney refusing to intervene? As OK as Davis may have been, he had control of the third largest economy in the world and got punted around like a tool. Dems don’t need leaders like that.

  • I’ve thought for awhile that he bows out next year. This is not a guy who likes to lose, and Maria probably just wants to go the hell home.

  • Good for you, Eadie. And don’t forget
    he believes in global warming, too.

    Speaking of that, check out
    http://www.livescience.com for what ought
    to be the final nail in the global warming
    nay sayers coffin. Finally, the idea that
    atmospheric temperatures have been
    falling has been thoroughly debunked.
    The actual story URL is 200 miles long,
    so just go to the site and find the article.

    Sorry CB, but I couldn’t find a posting
    to work that in, so I kinda had to sneak
    it in here.

  • Actually, CB, Austria is a German-speaking country.

    Sounds to me that all the Democrats need to do is close ranks around one candidate, and Ahnold is toast.

  • Eadie,

    I don’t know enough about Gray Davis to be an expert, but he certainly was less than effective at managing the Enron crisis. In all fairness to him, though, I don’t know that any honest person could have been effective in real time while operating in the information vacuum perpetrated by Enron and the F.E.R.C. That vacuum wasn’t finally punctured until the time of the mediocre Congressional hearings (remember how so many criminal prosecutions were sabotaged by the unnecesary grant of immunity, just so the Rethugs could grandstand), and even the much-later criminal trials. I think that Davis was as much a victim — a political victim — of Enron, just as were so many of its customers, employees, and investors.

    Also, the recall apparatus was never used in the past — nor intended to be used — as it was used the Rethugs. Give them credit for successfully doing something that stinks for crass political gains, not for the best interests of California and its citizens (just like DeLay in the Texas redistricting). Give the Rethugs kudos for chutzpah or brass ones or whatever, but don’t laud them for their successful tactics unless you want Dems to do that, too.

    As for the $20,000 and $1,000 payoffs to silence Arnold’s accusers, I suspect that these could indeed be criminal. Certainly, if it was done to protect an exclusive story that the tabloid used or expected to use in its publications, then that’s good business practices. But the tabloid never used it, and enquiring minds want to know IF it ever intended to do so — or maybe had a more sinister ulterior motive. For example, did the tabloid already have a then-undisclosed business relationship with the soon-to-be candidate for Governor that it wanted to protect? Would it’s new contract with Arnold, entered into just TWO days before he was sworn in as Governor, make Arnold’s endorsements that much more valuable to the tabloid precisely because he was now Governor? If so, might it not add up to a conclusion that the tabloid paid the money to the women to silence them — to prevent highly exlosive and politically devastating reports of extra-marital affairs hitting the public airways — so as not to sour or sabotage the possiblity that Arnold would get elected?

    IF — and I stress IF — that is the case, then the tabloid engaged in an illegal attempt to influence the election. In other words, the $20,000 and $1,000 payments are “political contributions or expenditures” on Arnold’s behalf — and may have been done with Arnold’s consent or even at his direction — without compliance with PAC and other organizational-reporting-contribution-expenditure requirements (that’s why so many TRMPAC folks are now in so much do-do in Texas, including businesses such as Sears). It is speculation, sure, but nonetheless a logical scenario based on what we know so far and what the law requires AND prohibits.

    So the problems here may be more than just a conflict of interest for Arnold’s endorsement deal; that’s bad enough — and Eadie, I don’t think you’re giving enough credit for Arnold’s creditionals as a Bush-style Rethug: his labor-busting and pension-raiding tactics; his lies about avoiding influence by special interests; his lies about balancing the budget, and about taxes; and his lie about restoring $2 billion of mandatory funding for education — all this being just a start on that litany. Indeed, the tabloid’s actions may be criminal for the tabloid AND for Arnold.

    Finally, I’m sure you did not mean to say that Arnold is a better deal as Governor for California and its citizens than was Davis or a Dem like him. That is my perception of your last paragraph, Eadie; if so, I heartily disagree. If I’m wrong, I apologize. I too would like a strong Dem as Governor. But Arnold is too much like Tom DeLay for my taste, and as time goes by more revelations make that comparison a valid one. As usual, time will tell.

  • A.L.–well said. I had thought about posting a response but it would have only come out a bit too sarcastic and mean spirited, and that is not the appropriate tenor. There is enough of that already.

  • As a resident of CA, I have to agree with by the tenor and substance of AL’s post.

    Just to add a few other insights, Ahnold promised that he’d balance the budget as part of his “restructuring” CA’s debt. He certainly restructured our debt which led to enormous fee payments to wall street investment bankers and did nothing about truly resolving the impasse in the dysfunctional CA legislature. IIRC, he added a pro-business/pro-development appointee to the CA Coastal Commission–a critical group whose main mission is to protect our coastline and to ensure access to that coastline for ALL californians, not just the wealthy/privileged. (please note, I do not and will not defend all of the Coastal Commission’s past or even current behaviors/actions, however, their basic mission is one I fully endorse).

    Don’t even get me started on how Herr Gropinator has treated nurses, teachers, fire fighters and other public employees. His heavy handed attempts to dictate their working conditions, pensions and pay is classic GOP/rethuglican. Luckily, he picked the wrong groups and his popularity/approval ratings are suffering accordingly.

    If he really wanted to use his leadership (mandate?), he could have really tried some independent/moderate solutions. How about a combination of fees/tax hikes with decreases in public spending in both standard education/human-health services *and* developer kick-backs/inducements. Instead of that politically challenging and difficult approach, he choose just to reduce spending on education/human-health services and to grandstand on more bond issues for his friends on wall street. I didn’t see any GOP related sacrifices on any of his proposals.

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