The "money quote" will be all over the place by Friday morning. Here's ABC's version:
ABCNEWS obtained a copy of an unpublished book proposal with quotes from a verbatim transcript of an interview Schwarzenegger gave in 1975 while making the film Pumping Iron.
Asked who his heroes are, he answered, "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."
He is quoted as saying he wished he could have an experience, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being total agreement whatever you say."
I was surprised to see that two very partisan Democratic bloggers, Atrios and Hesiod, both kind of shrugged this off.
Come on, guys, this isn't something to fold on. Austrians may not typically have the more cosmopolitan perspective educated Germans might have. But they aren't morons. An Austrian who would say something like that in 1975 knew darn well what he was saying. In fact, if he had said something like that on Austrian television, there would at least be speculation on whether he had violated the country's anti-Nazi laws.
I have a photo from the 08/18/94 issue of Die Presse (Vienna) showing a smiling Schwarzenegger shaking hands with Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider at the Austrian premiere of Arnold's film True Lies. The story is about the governor of Arnold's home province Styria making a deal with Haider's party over some hopelessly obscure office.
But it reminds me that Haider, notorious for his praise of the Third Reich, has never been publicly quoted as praising Hitler that explicitly. And Haider is a political pariah in most of the European Union for making less admiring comments about Hitler than that.
Austrian society tolerates anti-Semitism more than it should. But anybody that believes that was some harmless comment that any Austrian might have made in 1975 is way off base.
2 comments:
In 1975 I was a high school History teacher. I told my classes that Hilter was an excellent speaker, that he could whip people into ecstasy. They saw proof in the movies I showed. People swooned at Hitler's speeches. I told my classes that Hitler energized the German economy. I helped them see very powerful leaders can be very dangerous.
If I were running for \ governor, people who were in my class, might twist my comments on Hitler just as they are doing with Arnold’s.
Cheese Lo
It's true that it's become standard in "oppo research" to pull quotes or votes out of context. But the 1975 quote from Arnold was expressing quite an explicit personal admiration, not an appreciation for successful techniques. In the Austrian context with which Arnold was familiar, the comment would have been outrageous. But see my posts above for more information. - Bruce
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