Posted on 11/01/2011 5:26:24 AM PDT by lbryce
Herman Cain, a surprise leader in the Republican race for the presidency, acknowledged Monday that he was accused of sexual harassment while chief of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, but he denied wrongdoing in an episode that has consumed his rising candidacy.
Facing the biggest test of his campaign just as it was demanding notice from a political world that had not seen him coming, Mr. Cain spent the day in a whirlwind of television interviews and news briefings that were originally supposed to highlight his economic plans but became an exercise in damage control.
He maintained that he had been falsely accused and that internal investigations at the association had corroborated that. But his explanations evolved during a day in which conservative supporters rallied against what they called an unfair attack from the news media, while others expressed fresh doubts about a campaign that has yet to prove it has the mettle to survive a national nominating battle.
Mr. Cain’s shifting explanations and the gaps in the story made it hard to determine the impact of the revelations on his long-term prospects in states like Iowa, whose crucial caucuses are just two months away.
In the early afternoon, Mr. Cain told a gathering at the National Press Club in Washington that “I am unaware of any sort of settlement” related to harassment accusations, which he called “a witch hunt.” But in an interview with Greta Van Susteren of the Fox News Channel shown Monday night, he acknowledged that in at least one case “there was some sort of settlement or termination,” worth “maybe three months’ salary.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mark Levin said last night that it takes time to unseal closed documents from the court system. Cain probably didn't know what was in the documents.
The point is, until Cain or someone closely associated with Cain (and who is willing to have their name in print) says Cain knew about the settlements, it's premature to claim Cain was lying.
But that sure won't stop some of the Perry trolls around FR from making that claim. Most of the Perry supporters on FR are decent, but a few really are unprincipled hacks. Those are the ones I refer to as trolls. Anyone who uses what is clearly MSM spin to attack a conservative is a troll in my book.
The Perrykrishna’s do all they can to avoid the totality of info on this thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2800372/posts
I really can’t blame them though. LOL
1/3 to 1/2 of the Tea Party do not like the GOP Establishment to start with. This sort of sleazebot attack on Cain may just buy the GOP a 3rd party challenger from the right in 2012 if they are not careful.
Beat Cain on the issues or get out of the way Rovebots. The GOP grassroots are not going to put up with your sleazy politics as usual tactics this time around. The stakes in 2012 are far to high for the GOP Establishment's stupid political tricks.
The word ‘harrassment’ was improper from the begining, as far as I’m concerned, because it does imply an ongoing or repeated action. However, the legal definition has nothing to do with how many times or how long the situation has gone on - once is enough - and most people understand that definition, even though it doesn’t seem to make sense.
That’s why changing it to ‘sexual misconduct’, which is a phrase not as familiar to people, makes it sound worse.
He was on Greta last night. She is a lawyer and very good at interrogation and asking questions. Cain came across as credible, truthful and honest in responding to her questions. He did not evade nor conveniently forget except for instances where it would be reasonable to assume it would be difficult for anyone to to recall information of the type Greta was asking for. Also, knowing quite a bit about the mechanics of “sexual harassment” charges and their outcomes, Cain’s narrative was pretty familiar with respect to the “pay them off if they will just leave” scenario. There is nothing here except (possibly) two under performing females taking advantage of circumstances that permitted them a parting shot opportunity to bilk their employer.
Better buy a clue smearbot. Nobody is buying your lying smear posts anymore.
“They should tell it like it is: 2 ladies apparently tried to exhort money from the company by making false claims against the CEO.”
Exactly.
As one gets a bit older, and especially one who has led a very active, fast paced life—the details of some events tend to blur—believe me, I know of what I speak—LOL!
But—the woman was actually not “paid off” —she was fired and paid a three month’s salary settlement. That’s a huge difference! Now—I wonder how many people have worked for Mr. Cain through the years....does anyone think he remembers them all?
I figure that whoever was hired to take care of stuff like this, took care of it and might have mentioned it to Mr. Cain, but certainly no big deal was made of it at the time.
And no—I wouldn’t have remembered that, either, especially if I had led as busy and varied a life as Mr. Cain has.
The mistake was that the Cain organizers are new to this game, and weren’t fully prepared to handle the whole thing.
To me the whole thing is trivial, unless there is a lot more that we on’t know yet..........
How about you try making a case FOR your candidate one time instead of engaging in these gutter slime level political tactics?
No arrow formed against him will prosper.
I thought that Cain at first might not remember or be aware of a settlement, but after the media got involved, he looked at the facts again and discovered that there was a settlement. But if that was the case, Cain did not explain that very well.
Compare this to the media's and left's point of view about Clinton and John Edwards.
“”my local news reported it as ‘sexual misconduct’, not ‘sexual harrassment’””
During Greta’s interview with Herman last night, the scroll read “abuse” - the word sexual didn’t appear but even using “abuse” was disgusting!!
In every campaign he has ever been in Romney pays his campaign stooges to pretend to not be associated with his camp while racing round pushing every possible smear job against his opponents they can.
This campaign will be no different.
The Romneybots will never actually posting any for their candidate, they will instead merely spend all their time lying about Romney's foes.
A fair assessment, and the Cain staffers need to hone up on their rapid response capabilities, and Cain needs to learn to keep his mouth shut until he has the whole story, something he failed to do on the n-head issue as one example. He does need to make the transition from radio show mindset to front-runner mindset in a hurry - you just can't shoot off your mouth without gathering all the facts when you are the front running and an army of hacks is nipping at your heels, just looking for any opportunity to trip you up.
B..B..But...his donations DOUBLED yesterday amidst all the accusations.
I think the NYT is overstating “Damage Control”.
The Truth will set you free.
Standard Romney Campaign SOP.
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