If you ever needed a classic illustration of how an opportunistic candidate for public office avoided scrutiny and received a mainstream media free pass then fasten your attention on California and the classic case of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Last Saturday night NBC's Dateline resumed its series on sexual predators, targeting adult males who engaged in chat room conversations and made appointments to meet females under the age of legal consent.  

When they showed up for the anticipated assignations the men were greeted instead by Dateline commentator Chris Hansen and a battery of NBC cameras.  After talking to Hansen with great embarrassment they stepped outside, to be greeted by the local police.  With guns raised the officers commanded them to lie down on the ground, whereupon they were handcuffed.

There is one story, however, that the moral guardians of NBC Television will not handle about the predatory past of a famous individual who, unlike the truly confused and pathetic types revealed in the Dateline sting, had numerous advantages and has converted them to the position of untouchable.

One of the most conspicuous recent examples of big time mainstream media coddling with a super rich infusion of double standard hypocrisy involves Arnold Schwarzenegger.  A steroid-pumped man-child with a preoccupation with ceremony and himself was plucked from the ranks of movie action heroes to reign as California's governor.  

If California were a nation rather than America's most populous state it would be the world's sixth largest.  When opportunity came Arnold's way, after he thrilled to the election of independent Jesse Ventura, a fellow bodybuilder and former football player, as Minnesota's chief executive the former Mister Olympia hoped that one day a comparable destiny awaited him.

After Gray Davis was reelected as California's governor in 2002 Republican strategy guru Karl Rove saw vulnerability.  Corporate predator Enron applied the squeeze to the state's economy, which it ripped off with gluttonous results, generating staggering utility rises.  Rove saw a way to capitalize on the surging unpopularity of Davis, who was compelled to deal with the situation.

While Dick Cheney ignored Enron's cutthroat tactics and proclaimed that the tragedy demonstrated the necessity for more offshore drilling to increase America's energy supply, Davis was the unlucky figure to be standing in the wake of a falling giant oak.