Remember Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? It seems like only yesterday that we learned all those sordid details about their private meetings in a small room just off the Oval Office. The rest, as they say, is history: the tongue clucking, finger wagging, congressional hearings, and shows of righteous indignation that have served one of America’s two great political parties very well. Sometimes I wonder: Where would American politics be today without Bill Clinton’s sins?

But now the shoe is on the other foot, and I’m straining, hand cupped to my ears, listening for the same shrill cries from guardians of American morality. Bill Clinton, meet Arnold Schwarzenegger, bodybuilder, Hollywood star, a.k.a. "Terminator," and possibly Republican governor of California should Gray Davis, the current Democratic governor, be kicked out of office come October 7.

I exaggerate only slightly to suggest that Schwarzenegger has a personal history that makes Bill Clinton look like a choir boy. To millions of moviegoers, Schwarzenegger is an onscreen persona: a nononsense, muscle-bound, gun-toting hero, the vortex of attention in blockbuster films littered with mayhem, death, and mangled machinery. But he’s also a real person, and glimpses of his life offscreen recently resurfaced from an interview he held in August 1977 with Oui magazine, a publication of Playboy enterprises.

In 1977, Schwarzenegger was still on his way to stardom, and he spoke freely about himself. Schwarzenegger admitted using "dope," but only "grass and hash—no hard drugs." "I do what I feel like doing, " he added, "I’m not on a health kick."

Schwarzenegger was apparently less selective with women. "I get laid on purpose," he explained. "I can’t sleep before a competition and I’m up all night, anyway, so instead of staring at the ceiling I figure I might as well find somebody and…," he continued with a vulgarity often used to describe sexual intercourse. Schwarzenegger recalled the contest for Mr. Olympia in 1972, in which women were kept backstage, on call for the pleasure of the competing bodybuilders. "It didn’t bother me at all;" he continued, "in fact, I went out of there [after a sexual encounter] feeling like King Kong."

Schwarzenegger spoke freely about another encounter at a gym in southern California. "[T]here was a black girl who came out naked," he remembered. "Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together." Asked to explain the meaning of "got together," Schwarzenegger agreed to a synonym: "gang bang."

Normally, candidates don’t crave such publicity. Shortly after the interview resurfaced, Schwarzenegger claimed not to remember it. Within a week, however, its existence and authenticity were firmly established. Then, his lapsed memory apparently refreshed, he recalled granting the interview but said that some of his responses were false and "exaggerated."

So which will it be? Either Schwarzenegger lied in the 1977 interview—as he currently claims—or he actually told the truth, which renders his current response false. Both versions catch him in acts of deceit, and both suggest that honesty is not one of his strengths.

Other issues have arisen, as well. According to some supporters, the Oui interview is irrelevant; marriage and fatherhood have transformed the candidate over the past twenty-five years into an exemplar of wholesome family values. However, the evidence suggests something different.

In July 2003, Entertainment Weekly printed a feature about Schwarzenegger’s work on Terminator 3, his most recent film. "[N]othing in T3 bears Schwarzenegger’s creative stamp more than his epic tussle with Terminatrix [a female robot], a battle that begins in a bathroom," claimed the writer.

"’As we were rehearsing, I saw this toilet boil,’ says Schwarzenegger, an impish smile crossing his face. ’How many times do you get away with this—to take a woman, grab her upside down, and bury her face in a toilet bowl?’" The scene was never shot, but Schwarzenegger apparently maintained his enthusiasm.

"’The thing is, you can do it, because in the end, I didn’t do it to a woman—she’s a machine!" he continued. "We can get away with it without being crucified by who-knows-what group.’"

Why would leaders of Schwarzenegger’s party embrace a candidate who carries at very least the odor—and at most the substance—of wanton violence, fast living, untruthfulness, and mysogny, especially after spending the past decade telling Americans that theirs is the party of morality, character, and family values? The answer, I suspect, resides in the nature of the California recall.

By law, the recall process in California limits campaigning to a short sixty- to eighty-day window. Other state laws restrict the amount of funding candidates can gather from individual donors. As a result, the process favors wealthy, well-known candidates who can bankroll their own campaigns and command almost-instant name recognition.

Viola! Warts and all, superstar Schwarzenegger, flush with millions from Terminator 3, offered party leaders the best opportunity to oust Davis, prevail over opponents, and regain long-sought political power. For party leaders who smelled that power, no hard-earned principle was apparently too precious not to be tossed aside like a paper cup.

Of course, Schwarzenegger and his party did not invent political hypocrisy, but they have raised it to new heights. And they deserve credit for plowing new ground in what is currently known in American politics as "traditional family values," a development with which every Christian can be concerned.

In the Bible, hypocrisy is a subject of special concern. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is Jesus more scathing than with hypocrites (see Matthew 23), and for good reason. Professing one thing but doing another devalues principle, heightens cynicism, and exposes to ridicule those who honestly aspire to lives of integrity. Among other dangers, hypocrisy inoculates onlookers against appreciating and accepting enduring values that, from a Christian perspective, make life worth living.

On October 7, Schwarzenegger may very well end up winning California’s recall election, but if he does his victory will come at a price that unwittingly saddles honest seekers of virtuous life with burdens they never wanted.

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