Strauss-Kahn’s Lynch Mob

By Jack Engelhard

“As long as there are women there’s going to be trouble.” I once wrote that but should have phrased it to read “as long as there are OTHER women” etc…

We now have two cases that deal with sex – that is, the OTHER woman – but it’s not really about sex. Sex is nothing. Temptation is everything.

You’ll find that in the novel “Indecent Proposal.” But never mind. Arnold’s case is pure and simple (good cliché), but the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is troubling. At least I’m troubled. I’ve been troubled about this from the start. We know that throughout history even the most powerful of men have been felled by temptation.

This now applies to Strauss-Kahn who was among the most powerful men in the world until a few days ago when a Manhattan hotel maid accused him of rape or attempted rape. This man heads the IMF, International Monetary Fund (don’t ask me what this is, but it’s big) and was about to run for president of France, hoping to unseat Sarkozy.

In short order, he was handcuffed (publicly) and now sits in Rikers Island. It’s fitting here to quote King David --- “How the mighty have fallen.”

So fast? Too fast? I don’t know. But something smells. Here’s what we do know. A woman, the maid, has charged him with attempted rape.

Here’s what we don’t know. If there was sex, was it perhaps consensual? We know the man. We don’t know the lady.

Could this have been a set-up?

A man so powerful must have powerful enemies.

Very possible that this hotel maid is just that, a hotel maid. Could she POSSIBLY have been a plant, a secret agent paid to entrap?

Who knows?

Yet commentators all over the news have already declared the man guilty. This is especially troubling. What happened to “innocent until proven guilty?”

Not only that, but there is joy in the man’s downfall. People love this. There’s dancing in the streets, practically. This too is troubling.

In the Front Pages he’s being portrayed as a monster. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t.

The cries to “get him” are starting to sound like a lynch mob. Throughout the ages people have lusted for human sacrifice. Still?

What does it say about us when we’re so glad when people trip and fall? We can even add Arnold in this. Some take pleasure in his disgrace.

This man Strauss-Kahn, for all I know he may be guilty. If he goes to trial and is FOUND guilty, all bets are off. I am in favor of castrating rapists – and then giving them the chair early and often. ZERO tolerance. But before all that, let’s hold off the lynch mob. By the way, how come Charlie Sheen seldom pays? He beats up women, doesn’t he? Since when is that kosher?

About the author: Novelist Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestseller “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His book of memoirs “Escape From Mount Moriah” is an official selection CANNES Film Festival 2011 through Nikila Cole’s filming of the book’s short story “My Father, Joe.”

http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Mount-Moriah-Memoirs-Refugee/dp/0967407486/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

Engelhard’s website – www.jackengelhard.com