Though as Alana noted, the polls indicate Republican voters don’t care about the sexual harassment charges lodged against Herman Cain; more charges are now surfacing about the candidate’s behavior. These new accusations, including a third woman who has complaints about Cain’s actions during his time as CEO of the National Restaurant Association and the statement by a GOP operative who also worked at the Association that the candidate behaved inappropriately to a woman at a restaurant.
While each of these stories could be dismissed individually as insignificant or unproved, we’re now up to four separate charges against Cain. His supporters may call this a media feeding frenzy but as the volume of accusations goes up, the more likely it is that this is a pattern of disturbing behavior rather than misunderstandings. As much as Cain seems at the moment to be impervious to damage from the issue, the longer this drags on with more women stepping forward to accuse him the harder it gets to dismiss it as either a function of media bias or racism.
As I wrote earlier today, Herman Cain’s greatest strength is his confident and pleasant demeanor and his utter unflappability. But at this point, it is not unreasonable for some to start to think that there is another side to his personality that the public hasn’t seen. With the lawyer for one of the women who lodged a formal complaint about him and received a financial settlement in exchange for her silence about the matter to meet tomorrow with the Restaurant Association to ask that her gag order be lifted, this episode may be about to morph from a titillating story into a full-blown scandal.
It goes without saying that Cain needs to get out in front of these accusations for once and keep his story straight when he tells us his version of what happened in each instance. Republican voters may still love him but if we’re just at the beginning of this story rather than at the end with more incidents to be revealed as we go along it’s hard to believe that this issue won’t sink him in the end.
We still have anonymous sources – who for some reason think there will be "retaliation" if they come forward, who won't even specify anything beyond "he invited me to his apartment" or "he said they were pretty" and this is supposed to render verdict on his fitness? Oh, and the person who supposedly wanted to come out yesterday, but for a NDA, now is reluctant. Oh, and the GOP pollster just happens to be affiliated with the Perry camp, and says the incident, which happened in a public restaurant is so bad that it will end his campaign – yet will not describe it because he will violate an NDA that there is no reason on earth he would have had to sign. n nMeanwhile the people who don't remain anonymous vouch for his character and are ignored. This is opportunistic and a hit job, everybody knows it. No one cares whether or not it happened. It is just a game that is played in our sorry excuse for a political process. The game is to get enough "voices" to cry uncle and dump him. No wonder the Left constantly roles the right in this country. This whole thing is very unfair and DC is a sewer.
I will continue to disagree until we have some specifics about the actions. n nOne of the problems many people have with liberalism in our society today is how to offend ANYONE is tantamount to destroying all mankind. Of course that is an exaggeration, and it would be more correct to say "offend anyone's liberal sensibilities", but the gist is correct: The drive for political correctness of liberalism ends up fighting for the tyranny of the minority (or the one) over the majority. Many people believe our society has gone way too far in trying not to offend anybody. n nThe only details I know so far in all this mountain of coverage is that Cain behaved in a way that made a few women "uncomfortable." Our standard for using such a dramatic term as "sexual harassment" should be higher than "uncomfortable." n nFrankly, if the following is the case: "Wilson declined to say specifically what Cain said or did to the woman" — then — shut up, media!! n nThat is not news!! If your source will not give you details, then how in the world can you report it? The standard of journalism ethics should be higher the more damaging and sensational the story — not lower!! n nNow that several accusations have come out, I DO want to know the details. I do want to know if there has been a pattern of behavior I would deem inappropriate for a person holding high government office. BUT, if you can't give me the details to allow me to make up my own mind, shut up until you can. n nWe live in an era where the individual's sensibilities mean everything. A thin skinned era where to damage someone's sense of self-worth is easy and tantamount to assaulting them. How am I to judge Cain's actions without details? n nWas he simply crude at times? Did he tell dirty jokes? Or, was he a predator? Did he truly sexually harass these women? n nI have no idea. I now know what the media wants me to think. I can see others affected by our hyper-PC society jumping to conclusions because the highly charged term "sexual harassment" has been used. But, until I get the details, I don't know what to think other than the fact we don't have nearly enough information to decide anything. n nAnd by the way, I will not vote for Cain. I am not a Cain supporter. I like his track record in the business world, but for president, I want someone with a proven experience in politics preferably at the executive level: a mayor of a big city or a governor. Someone who has been successful getting things done on a large scale against political opposition. n nSo, I am not a Cain supporter. I just think if we are going to ruin a man's public life (and do significant damage to his private life) by labeling him one of the worst things you can – a sex offender – in the mind of the public, we need to be very sure of our facts. Right now, I have virtually no facts to work with…
The "new charges" prove absolutely nothing. It just shows what happens when the left wing media wants to get a story to snowball if they can. That this site is giving so much credence and benefit of the doubt to them is my definition of pathetic.
Cain's contradictory, self-erasing, and self-amending responses do not inspire confidence. Nor does the flop sweat of his campaign manager on TV blaming the mess on Perry. And the nuts-and-sluts characterization of the accusers (who are bound by NDAs) is not self-confirming.
What characterization can you possibly be referring to? The only thing Cain and his people have implied is that he was falsely accused – i.e.- he is defending himself. Oh, and that she wasn't a very good worker, which was backed up by the NYT hit piece – which by the way, revealed that it was a severance (meaning she was fired) not some kind of harassment settlement. n nOf course, we can't judge any of this because the whole story is one innuendo after another. n nOh, and I guess Cain is the only person morally bound to respect the NDA – as the whole story came to light in the first place. But if Cain doesn't answer everything he is hiding, but if he does answer the allegations he's a bad guy for violating the agreement – which by the way, Politico won't tell us whether they knew about the agreement (meaning whether they knew that Cain legally could not defend himself when they launched their smear). n nSo Cain isn't allowed to know what he is defending against, is presumed guilty, and his is the only reputation that is supposed to suffer. Meanwhile Lady X's lawyer reveals that she will in fact, not go public, but yet will release a statement that will not have details – and yet will supposedly restore her reputation which has supposedly been tarnished even while she remains anonymous. And the Perry pollster gets to air his dirty laundry which supposedly can be corroborated by several witnesses who can't be bothered to actually corroborate it. n nSo Cain is completely blind to what is coming at him, has to try and all the conversations he has had over ten years ago, and do it immediately and to the satisfaction of those who do not respect him in the first place. n nTell me, how can he possibly look good during all this? It is impossible. How do you wade through a sewer and come out clean. How would you handle it? It is astounding that Commentary would be so blase about this character assassination just because Cain isn't there guy. Cowards!
Cain and his team originally declared that there was nothing to the complaints at all–they denied that there were any complaints–they rejected the very fact of complaints as being anonymously sourced–then they moved on to saying they were false, that HR determined they were groundless etc. (even with the amendment of the reported hand gesture)–just mercenary craziness. n nBut yes, you do raise the legitimate point that this would be part and parcel of a defense–I didn't do it. n nOn the other hand, Team Cain is lately not saying that the leak came from the ladies themselves but from Perry allied consultants. n nAs Cain himself through his campaign manager states that he by his lonesome first communicated the details of the complaints to the Perry consultant in 2003 for a Senate run (when the consultant worked for Cain) he knows the details of this today, even as he knew the details back then. n nIndeed, as he and his own team are claiming they knew about this stuff and are the ultimate source of the innuendo today the entire defense that he can't possibly respond to these anonymous and mysterious charges about which he is in the dark continue to make no sense. n nHe isn't blind–his own campaign manager gave an interview in which he said that far from blind Cain knew details in 2003 and was the first source for them coming to light now. n nAnd that Cain was able to pin point himself as the original source.
What details? I haven't heard the details yet. I can imagine how what you are saying is true but not a sign of Cain flipflopping: n nIn 2003, as part of the vetting process, he mentioned that there was some accusations of sexual harassment against him by two women in the past. He never found out exactly what the accusations were because he stepped back and let Human Resources and counsel handle it. As far as he knows, it never amounted to much, because HR and counsel never pressed him hard on it but chose to give the women a severance package to head off any possible expense and embarrassing court battle. n nThe above seems to fit roughly with what the Cain camp has been saying from the start until now. n nHardly any details have been published at this case so far. We can't point too many fingers any which way.
Since this has been on their radar for most of a decade they could have issued a short prepared statement along the lines of: "During Mr. Cain's tenure as head of the NRA, two claims were presented to human resources. Beyond restating that they had no grounds–our position, then as now–we have to remind you that this is a confidential process to protect privacy, not least for those may wish to bring these types of claims in the future."