I must admit, I was taken aback by the level of anger among women over the Arnold Schwarzenegger affair. There is a Lorena Bobbitt lynch mob mentality about the whole thing. Tiger Woods didn’t get this kind of rage directed at him – he got a lot, but not this much. Even Mel Gibson had more supporters than poor old Arnold.
We loved him in Terminator and Total Recall, found him totally believable as the family man in True Lies, the strong but kindhearted type in Kindergarten Cop and Twins. We chuckled good naturedly as Leno and Conan did stupid impressions of him (Conan’s, of course, were so stupid they were brilliant). Most people didn’t even really turn on him even though he was a dick as governor. But now, whammo.
Maybe it’s because we like him so much, that so many people hate him now. Sense of betrayal and all that. But it’s the sense of surprise I don’t get.
Actor has sex with woman who is not his wife. Stop the presses! Has child with mistress and doesn’t tell his wife, who figures it out like 14 years later when the kid, who is their maid’s kid, is growing up to look like a young Hercules in New York.
I guarantee you, Maria Shriver was not terribly surprised. Unless, of course, she’s dumber than she looks.
Some people will say “It’s not about an actor having an affair. He was a politician.” True. So were Mark Foley, Mark Sanford, Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer, John Ensign, John Edwards, David Vitter, Gary Hart, Wilbur Mills, JFK and many, many more.
So, you cross an actor with a politician and what do you get? A guy who has affairs and can lie about it really, really well. And that is my profound thought of the day.

