BLOOD GUILT?

What's wrong with Arnold?: He may be a box office king, but years of accusations that the Governator is an anti-Semite may harm Schwarzenegger in the voting booth. And it probably won't help that his dad was a Nazi. (Benyamin Cohen, August 14, 2003, Jewsweek.com)

More than a decade ago, Schwarzenegger approached the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center to help do research on his tainted lineage. As it turns out, Schwarzenegger Sr. joined the Nazis in 1941 where he served as a police officer. Perhaps with the foresight of a possible future political run, the actor immediately gave the Jewish organization a sizeable donation. Rabbi Marvin Hier, the head of the Wiesenthal Center, said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the actor donated almost a cool million of his own cash and helped raise millions more from other people.

"Smart politician that he is, Schwarzenegger has bought himself insurance against his father's Nazi Party affiliation in Austria," explains Newsweek's Martha Brant. "If money can buy a recall election, why can't it buy a clean family record?"

It is beneath contempt for folks to try to hold a son responsible for the crimes of his father. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 14, 2003 8:48 PM