Maureen Dowd Roughs Up Strauss-Kahn

Here is a bit from an article in the NY Times by Maureen Dowd taking the reprobate Dominique Strauss-Kahn to task for raping "the help" at a high priced hotel:

Was the chief of the International Monetary Fund telling other countries to tighten their belts while he was dropping his trousers? Lawyers for the 62-year-old Frenchman, who had been a leading Socialist prospect to run against Nicolas Sarkozy next year, seem ready to rebut any DNA evidence by arguing that sex with the maid who came in to clean his room was consensual.

Will they argue that she wilted with desire once she realized Strauss-Kahn had been at Davos?

Jeffrey Shapiro, the maid’s lawyer, angrily rebutted that there was “nothing, nothing” consensual about the droit du monsieur. (It was not a “come in and see my monetary fund” kind of thing.)

“She is a simple housekeeper who was going into a room to clean a room,” Shapiro told The Times. He called the devout Muslim woman from the Bronx “a very proper, dignified young woman” and said “she did not even know who this guy was” until she saw the news accounts.

Strauss-Kahn’s French defenders are throwing around nutty conspiracy theories, sounding like the Pakistanis about Osama. Some have suggested that he was the victim of a honey-pot arranged by the Sarkozy forces.

Go read the whole article to savour every jibe and jab as she deflates this hyper-inflated ego for his lechery and vicious disregard of the rights and dignity of "the little people". Strauss-Kahn is a symbol of today as the billionaires and millionaires aggrandize power that lets them rise, in their minds, above the long arm of the law. We are their playthings. The are the lords of this new world which has been carefully arranged to give the ultra-rich complete dominance over the rest of us.

Here is the new reality as characterized by Dowd:

In Washington, they have now nicknamed the street that separates the I.M.F. and the World Bank, where Paul Wolfowitz lost his job over financial hanky-panky with his girlfriend, the Boulevard of Bad Behavior.

These are the two institutions that are globally renowned for lecturing the rest of the world on discipline and freedom, when it’s the West that’s guilty of recklessness and improvident behavior. First in finance, then in sex.

People who can’t keep their flies zipped lecturing other people.

Here she points out that the rise to dominance of the ultra-rich has led them to ultra-outrageous behaviour:

Another famous European with a disturbing pattern of sexual aggression got in trouble over the help this week: The ex-governor of California, who got elected after his wife, Maria Shriver, defended him so eloquently against groping charges.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was also guilty of the raw assertion of male power. More than mere infidelity, The Sperminator was caught on lying and piggishness, having a son with a staffer around the same time Maria had their youngest son, who is now 13. He kept the staffer on the payroll and sometimes even brought the son Maria didn’t know about into the house. No wonder Maria fled to a Beverly Hills hotel.

We’re always fascinated with the contradiction that cosmopolitan, high-powered, multilingual people can behave in such primitive ways. But civilization and morality have nothing to do with sophistication and social status.

I'm hoping that "the little people" get tired of being kicked around by the Leona Helmsley's of this world, famous for her quote:

We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes...

Which was an outcome of this sordid crime:

Following allegations by unpaid contractors that work done on her home had been charged to her company, she was investigated and convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989. Although having initially received a sentence of 16 years, Helmsley was required to serve only 19 months in prison and two months under house arrest. Helmsley's fate was sealed when a former housekeeper testified during the trial that she had heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes...", a saying that became notorious and was identified with her for the rest of her life.

Rape "the help", refuse to pay "the help", demand that the "little people" keep lowering taxes on the rich, allow the rich to buy politicians and ignore the law, etc. This is the brave new world that the "Reagan revolution" has unleashed on the world. A new Gilded Age with the ultra-rich rampant, aggressive, mean, and uncontrolled.

Update 2011jul3: There is a very nice follow-up article by Maureen Dowd entitled "When a Predator Collides With a Fabricator" that looks at the state of this case once the lies of the accuser became public.