Well, the media had a hard time not paying attention to six major concurrent Republican scandals, and so for one day, a lot of attention was given–but the day is over, and the media seems to be winding the stories down as quickly as possible.

Schwarzenegger, in fact, is getting a big break from the press, especially on the “dirty tricks” charge against Davis. The media had been lightning-fast in calling out Dean or Clark for making statements not supported by fact, but they’ve been pretty much supporting Arnold on his wholly unsubstantiated charge that Davis is somehow orchestrating all the bad news that is coming out about him.

Were all those women, now eleven of them, somehow created by the Davis campaign? Did Gray Davis tell them all to make up stories and then wait for this day to come out? Hardly. Nor is the timing suspect–the allegations have been around since before the campaign. The fact is, this campaign is so short, any timing could have been called “suspect” by some standards. In fact, if I were heading up a dirty tricks commission, I would consider this bad timing–rather, I would have had three or four women come forth initial maybe 15-20 days before the election, then timed it so that on or two more women would come forward every few days, so that a bad impression could be made early and sustained longer.

But Schwarzenegger is not being asked, or at least is not answering, any questions about what evidence he has that these reports are somehow part of a dirty tricks campaign. Instead, he is being given a free ride and allowed to create a completely false impression, one favored by Republicans in trouble:

Blame everything on the liberals.