Posted on 10/31/2011 11:26:12 AM PDT by opentalk
All three morning shows on Monday hyped a "bombshell blast" against Herman Cain, playing up a story in Politico charging the Republican presidential candidate with sexual harassment back in the 1990s. ABC's Good Morning America led with the allegations.
Co-host George Stephanopoulos, whose former boss, Bill Clinton, repeatedly faced sexual harassment claims, touted, "And this morning, bombshell blast. Major allegations against front-runner Herman Cain. Two former female colleagues accuse him of sexual harassment."
CBS's Early Show ...Crawford also connected the allegations, linking, "...This reminds me of similar allegations that were levied just 20 years ago against Justice Clarence Thomas who, of course, was accused of sexual harassment himself."
.... MAGGIE HABERMAN (Senior political writer, Politico): Uh, I think the story was extremely well reported and it really speaks for itself. We gave the campaign ten days to respond to this. They repeatedly did not directly address the specifics of this. And when one of my colleagues, Jonathan Martin, approached Mr. Cain directly yesterday. And he did not say these allegations are false. He didn't really even address it. So, I think the story is thoroughly reported and, again, I think it really does stand.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The sources are anonymous for the most part. You speak to some members of the board of the National Restaurant Association. They said they knew nothing about this. Did you speak to the women involved?
HABERMAN: You know, we spoke to many sources. I'm not going to specify who we spoke to. I think we spoke to a lengthy roster of people who were around the NRA at the time, former board members, former staffers, as we said in the story. But, I think I'm going to let the sources have protection.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why can't you say you spoke to the women?
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Anything that happened 20 years ago is relevant.
If liberals decide its relevant!
From the imnterview:
“HABERMAN: I think- I think it’s a legitimate question. But, I think as we said in the story, there were, you know, gestures. There were comments. There were certain suggestive overtures. For instance, things that made these women uncomfortable, made them angry and made them feel as if it was untoward.”
A gesture and comments? That’s it? Mighty thin stuff.
IIRC the accusation occured during the vetting process. Ted Kennedy was on the reveiw board at that time. I remember the race card being played, and the ONLY time Kennedy made a statement I agreed with was that an accusation form one black to another was a play on white guilt.
That aside, the dhimms are once again pulling this “prank” on another conservative black man.
—Didn’t Anita Hill just come out and charge him?—
It’s more interesting than that. She was “discovered” by those wishing to Bork him and did NOT want to go public. They said they were doing it with or without her, so she went public and fabricated a huge lie to hide that she lied on a job application after working for Thomas where she answered “Reason for leaving previous job?” with “Sexual harassment”.
And she spun from there. Time sifts out the truth. It has not been kind to her.
They must have some new internal polling data, showing Cain as a big threat. Remember when Bachmann was ahead, they went after her in a group attack, making it big news that she had occasional headaches.
They need to keep blacks on the Liberal Plantation.
There’s no more perfect way to do it than to bring down the GOP front-runner.
And yet the same MSM was totally uncurious about PROVEN associations between Obama and radical communists, socialists, leftists, and islamists at the same point in time in 2007. Which poses a greater threat to our nation? A known communist in the white house? Or a man of high moral standing facing anonymous allegations of, most likely, miniscule overall import?
The Overseers on the Democrat Plantation aren’t happy with the Runaway Slave Herman Cain...
I am waiting to see which republican candidate makes ANY reference to this as possibly true. I have my suspicions, but keeping my powder dry.
I know that by sheer innuendo, ONE candidate went as far as to insinuate in an ad that his opponent was responsible for the death of an American LEO. No facts. No rumors, even. But the ad went out. And there were others against other opponents that were nothing more than innuendo that were just as bad. So I’m waiting.
Rush talked about this today. They are intentionally doing this because Obamacare it going to be heard soon.
I know. People not working in today's business environment have no idea how broad is the brush called sexual harassment. We'd logically think it would fall into one of the Billy Jeff categories (of rape, exposure, or intimidation) - but it also covers complementing someone for their clothing. When you attend one of those harassment meetings ('Do's and Don'ts' for management) - you quickly realize that you've probably been guilty of various acts of harassment over the years.
So the DNC Media is happy to toss out the phrase 'Sexual Harassment' - knowing that people's minds will run wild and thinking it falls into one of the Billy Jeff categories; whereas the reality was probably something more mundane such as telling a joke, or using inappropriate language.
That’s all they have? Women may not like a man and that’s fine. Unless he did anything improper or illegal, its not sexual harrassment. I don’t see what kind of gestures or tone make people “uncomfortable and untoward.” Gee, I expected something that would disappoint me. I have yet to hear anything that’s newsworthy!
Some bombshell!
form=from
*THIS MAY BE ONE OF THE MOST POORLY RESEARCHED ARTICLES* based on a sound clip by one the authors where it is said, “the two women were given 5-figure settlements to LEAVE the organization.” This happens all over the US hundreds of times per day - it’s called a CONFIDENTIAL SEPARATION AGREEMENT, whereby you sever with the disaffected employee(s) for some accrued vacation with a few weeks pay to get the individual to go away quietly.
You do this to remove bad apples from the barrel. It serves no one to let these employees continue and the separation payment can easily be 5-figures if you look at the math:
- Base Salary = $8,000 per month
- Accrued Vacation = 2 weeks or $4,000
- Total severance with a month of pay and acrued vacation = $12,000
The payment has nothing to do with admission or denial or behavior - it about removing corrosive employees. As a businessperson, you must make these arrangements to preserve morale.
On one side (Politico) you have this:
We have a report where we know nothing about the accusers and the specifics of the accusations from a dozen years ago.They, at this point, are simply reported very vaguely by Politico: “episodes that left the women upset and offended” and “physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable," and that, "they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.”
We have allegation of payoff in the five figure range, but again, nothing specific. IMHO, until the accusers come up with something much more specific, like names, dates and places, it is going to continue to be nothing more than an attemted smear campaign from my perspecitve.
Maybe Politico has more...time will tell, but at this point, it's not out there.
Ron Magruder, Denise Marie Fugo and Joseph Fassler, the chair, vice chair and immediate past chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors through the entire time of Cain’s position at the Restruant Association, said they hadn’t heard about any complaints regarding Cain making unwanted advances.“I have never heard that. It would be news to me,” said Fugo, who runs a Cleveland, Ohio, catering company, adding such behavior would be totally out of character for the Cain she knew. “He’s very gracious.”
Fassler, who helped bring Cain on board as CEO of the restaurant association, said that any inappropriate behavior was not brought to his attention and that he would be upset to learn it had gone on and he was not made aware of it.
“That’s a shock to me,” Fassler said. “As an officer during all of Herman’s years there as a paid executive… none of that stuff ever surfaced to me. Nobody ever called me, complained about this, nor did I ever hear that from Peter Kilgore, nor did I ever hear that from Herman Cain.”
Fassler — who ran a Phoenix food-service company and finished his term as chairman the month before Cain’s June 1999 departure but remained on the board’s executive committee — described Cain as treating men and women identically and asserted it was “not within his character” to make unwanted advances. “It’s not what I know of him,” Fassler said.
Much like Fassler, almost all board members remember Cain fondly and say he left on good terms.
Cain was “extremely professional” and “fair” to female staffers at the restaurant association, recalled Lee Ellen Hayes, who said she “worked fairly closely with” Cain in the late 1990s, when she was an executive at the National Restaurant Association Education Fund, a Chicago-based offshoot of the group.
Cain’s treatment of women was “the same as his treatment of men. Herman treated everyone great,” said Mary Ann Cricchio, who was elected to the board of the restaurant group in 1998. She said Cain left such a good impression on the organization that when he spoke at a group event in January of this year, as he was considering a presidential bid, “he had unanimous support in the room.”
So, at this pont, who you gonna believe?
Pretty clear that someone is grabbing at straws. Cain clearly admitted that the accusations had been made but that the inquiry proved them baseless and without merit. He also indicated that he personally was unaware of any "settlement" and that if thre had been any, he hoped it wans't for much because he neved did anything wrong.
This is not that. Yes he and Cain are both black but this is an actual 15 year old incident with a paper trail. Thomas wasn't, Thomas was a fabricated story with the sole purpose of destroying the nomination of Clarence Thomas, this is more like a skeleton in Herman's closet.
OMG, not "untoward"?
They should seek the death penalty!
/s
I wish these people would spend equal time on barack obama’s intentional hiding of his college grades.
—...this is an actual 15 year old incident with a paper trail.—
...which I am anxious to see. :-)
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