Presidential candidate Herman Cain is not going to win the nomination for the Republican party but has been rising in the polls and in response, his critics have been digging through his past to find something salacious to make a story out of. Evidently no one could find anything so the best they could do was make a big deal out of a sexual harassment charge made against him when he was head of the National Restaurant Association. When Cain was head of the NRA it “took care to educate members on sexual harassment law“, whatever that means.
No one can find any details of actual harassment or anything sexual, but the NRA did pay a lady to STFU and leave instead of dealing with the charge so there’s that. A couple other ho’s have come forward to say Cain said inappropriate things in their presence too, but no specifics – which makes them hos. Politico.com is determined to take this story to the bank, however, obsessing over it to cartoonish degrees. They’ve published over 94 stories on this non-story in the past week. Jesus… Maybe their goal is to reach 999?
For those of you not familiar with Herman Cain: his big selling point is that he wants to throw away the current tax system and start with scratch with a 9% income tax, a 9% sales tax and a 9% corporate tax.
The only thing of value that has come from this issue has been the surfacing of the fact that the settlement with the accuser was signed September of 1999 or in other words: 9/99. That, friends, is worth a chuckle.
Sexual harassment is a joke because stupid hippies have made it such. Vague terms like “a pattern of behavior” don’t impress people who aren’t morons. If someone grabs your ass and sais “this candy hole be MINE, bitch. Trick or Treat at mah house 9pm ta-NITE if yu wanna keep yo daymn job tomorrah” is sexual harassment. Telling a joke or complimenting someone is not. Since nothing approaching the charges of the the former have been made and no specifics have been given to show us what gradation of the spectrum occurred in between those two, it’s safe to say this is bullshit.
The Cain campaign responded with the following video showcasing his attackers and comparing this line of attack with the smears against Clarence Thomas in the 90s:
This video is half right.
CORRECT: This is a high-tech lynching. the use of a non-story to be the story of the century is inexcusable and discredits those acting like there is any “there” there to this. Theres no argument to be made when you contrast this with other sexual accusations, most notably against Bill Clinton.
FALSE: This is not akin to the accusations made against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who originated the phrase “high tech lynching”. Thomas’s accuser, Anita Hill was a flat out joke and the use of her bullshit accusations were used to try and prevent Thomas from a job he was nominated for. Herman Cain is running for a job in a competition, so it’s not the same situation to start, but even though the accusations against him are bullshit too, they’re no where near the level of bullshit that Anita Hills were for a bunch of reasons. The biggest is that Cains accuser was paid a settlement and left her job over his remarks where as Anita Hill not only never sued and was never paid anything but actually followed Clarence Thomas to a new job after the remarks that allegedly made her so uncomfortable in the workplace, so
Those are important distinctions to make, but like I said – it’s still all bunk. The sum she was paid to this lady is said to be no big deal in terms of the history of these things.
In my opinion, the reported settlement sums – $35,000 and $45,000 – do not exceed “nuisance value.” In fact, the nuisance value of a sexual harassment claim based on the alleged misconduct of the head of an organization in the late 1990s was probably higher than these sums. Sexual harassment claims have much more potential for embarrassment than ordinary discrimination claims. And in the classic “he says, she says” situation, the outcome is usually much harder to predict. Hence the extra incentive to settle regardless of the merits.
On the other hand, a female who truly has experienced inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature might settle a case for as little as $35,000 or less. For example, a woman who is able to move seamlessly into a comparably paying job will sometimes accept a small settlement (or none) in order to be done with the matter. This is especially true if she did not experience major distress, and is unwilling falsely to allege it. The main goal of a woman who has a creepy boss is often to escape the situation, not to relive it in the hope of extorting a big settlement.
In addition, conduct that many would consider inappropriate, especially in a presidential candidate, might not clearly rise to the level of actionable sexual harassment. The law requires that the conduct alleged be “severe or pervasive.” A woman who experienced only a few incidents of inappropriate language or innuendo, without any pinching, groping, or truly lewd behavior, might reasonably take a small settlement for fear that she can’t meet the legal standard. However, the legal standard doesn’t necessarily coincide with the standard we want public figures to adhere to.
Andrew McCarthey on Politico’s weird handling of this:
But we’ve learned the most about Politico. Look, for example, at this: Politico this morning had a post about how, after Cain blamed Perry for being the source of the sexual-harassment story, Perry promptly turned around and floated Romney as the likely source. Yes, congratulations GOP on the circular firing squad — but that’s not the point. The point is:Politico knows who the source is.
This isn’t a game-show where the host has the answer on his little card and his job is to have the contestants keep guessing until someone stumbles into the right answer. This is supposed to be news coverage — professional journalism about a serious matter with a goal of edifying the reader about what actually happened.
Politico has now framed discovery of the identity of the source as is a noteworthy story. Yet,Politico knows that if the identity of the source is a story, it is only because Politico itself is being coy. Politico has reported that Perry may be the source and that Romney may be the source. Yet, Politico knows precisely whether the Perry campaign or the Romney campaign (or both . . . or neither) is the source. It is thus almost certainly true that at least some of the conflicting allegations Politico is airing are known by Politico to be false. In fact, both the Perry and Romney camps have denied involvement — if it so happens that one of those camps is the source, then Politico knows the denial is a lie, yet it published the denial anyway. That would amount to colluding with its source in order to tarnish Cain while fraudulently portraying its source as above the fray.
Howard Stern says he thinks its a smear job and Robin responds “of course, but that’s what they do in politics”.