Well, Wilson’s credibility as a witness is being challenged by one of the other people at the dinner:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2802161/posts
I wondered the other day why Wilson mentioned “at least three other people” being there but not naming a single one of them. Now we know why — they would not corroborate his story because it was a lie.
I’m certainly not saying that Wilson was a good witness. I’m saying that Wilson only came forward as a witness AFTER the story broke, and there is no evidence offered by anyone to show he WAS the source.
I still have no interest in the actual allegations. I doubt there was anything there, and if Cain had handled this right, we’d never really have been talking about the details. I’ll be shocked if anything comes out that rises to the level of a serious charge. I’m even of the opinion that the women were paid off simply because it’s easier to do that than to deal with them complaining.
Wilson struck me as someone trying to get a little fame off the story. I guess being a pollster you have to be looking for a little publicity all the time.
On the other hand, the “witness” refuting him really just says he doesn’t remember anything bad happening. Which unfortunately, isn’t the same as saying that he knows Wilson is wrong.
This is what happened to George Allen in 2006. He stupidly claimed he never said the n-word. Because of that, the media decided to cover every person who ever claimed they heard Allen say the n-word. And Allen would find someone at the same event saying the didn’t hear it. And then the media would question whether Allen’s witness was there at the precise moment when Allen was “alleged” to have said the word.
The whole campaign turned into a discussion of times when Allen may or may not have said the N-word, and then Allen essentially found someone and dragged them before the reporters to say that Webb had driven through town yelling the N-word. And nobody cared, because Webb had never made a blanket assertion that he never said it. And Allen’s campaign was directly tied to the guy they brought forward, while the people against Allen were “random people coming forward”
The Allen Campaign in 2006 was a textbook case study of what NOT to do when you get hit by a series of absurd charges (Macaca, Deer head put in a black person’s mailbox, the n-word). Cain isn’t doing much better. He was likely correct about the harrassment charges, and all he needed to do was say he never intentionally harassed anyone or did anything he thought would be considered harassment, and that he was sorry that his actions were misinterpreted that way.
I just find the sequence kind of damning for the Perry camp. Very, very few people knew of these allegations, yet two guys in Perry’s camp did, and just days after Anderson guys goes to work for Perry, BOOM! Coincidence? possibly, but I doubt it.