Posted on 10/31/2011 6:53:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There are many headlines that strike fear in the hearts of presidential campaigns — and this one from Politico is probably right near the worst of them. Last night, they ran a story that the National Restaurant Association had to settle two sexual-harassment claims against Herman Cain when he chaired the trade group in the 1990s:
During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.
The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.
Cain got challenged to respond to this earlier in the day, which led to an uncomfortable moment:
Cain said he has “had thousands of people working for me” at different businesses over the years and could not comment “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.” His campaign staff was given the name of one woman who complained last week, and it was repeated to Cain on Sunday. He responded, “I am not going to comment on that.”
He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”
He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”
By late evening, the Cain campaign had a more polished response in denying that Cain had ever engaged in sexual harassment, without denying the existence of the settlements:
Fearing the message of Herman Cain who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, Inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain.
Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the Chief Executive Officer at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.
Since Washington establishment critics haven’t had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain’s ideas to fix a bad economy and create jobs, they are trying to attack him in any way they can.engag
Sadly, we’ve seen this movie played out before – a prominent Conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics.
Mr. Cain — and all Americans, deserve better.
I’m not sure that Politico’s story about the settlements are “thinly sourced”; they appear to have made contact with the women involved, and Cain’s team pointedly did not deny that the settlements occurred. Politico also claimed to have seen the actual settlement documents and have a half-dozen sources for the story. Otherwise, this is a best-defense-is-a-good-offense response, blaming the media for reporting the story.
If the settlements exist, and if they pertain to sexual harassment, then it’s certainly fair game for the media. This would differ from the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill allegations, as Hill never reported Thomas contemporaneous to the supposed harassment (and continued working for him after they supposedly occurred). The two settlements would indicate that the women involved undertook action contemporaneous to the claims, which is more substantial than Hill’s behavior. However, it’s not clear from the story whether the settlements themselves are settled legal complaints, or merely small golden parachutes that don’t make any reference to the reason for the departure of the two women.
Even if the settlements reference sexual-harassment complaints, it’s important to remember that settlements in and of themselves don’t necessarily mean guilt or innocence. Anyone who has worked with high-ranking executives — especially those who have high public profiles — knows that they make pretty tasty targets for legal claims, whether warranted or not. For most organizations, it’s easier and cheaper to settle harassment claims than to fight them. The two women got five-figure settlements, which don’t seem particularly pricy, but that could also be deceptive — the women might not have had the resources to pursue the claims further than a smaller settlement, either. Cain doesn’t appear to have been rushed out of his position at the NRA, and he has had a very long run of success as an executive with a number of companies, and so far there hasn’t been any other claims of impropriety. That speaks in his favor, as long as that remains the case — and the Politico story indicates that may be the case:
Ron Magruder, Denise Marie Fugo and Joseph Fassler, the chair, vice chair and immediate past chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors at the time of Cain’s departure, 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.” …
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.”
Cain has certainly made his private-sector executive experience part of his resumé for President, including his leadership at the NRA. If — and that’s a big if — Cain engaged in inappropriate conduct as an executive to the extent that it cost his employer cast to settle the issues, then that would speak to his judgment. While no one should leap to the conclusion that Cain’s committed that kind of conduct, the existence of those settlements would require at least some explanation from Cain.
Update: We might need a little more explanation from Politico, too. Here’s Jonathan Martin on MSNBC, refusing to get specific about what exactly Cain said and did, out of sensitivity to the women involved, courtesy of Newsbusters:
WILLIE GEIST: Hey Jonathan, what are the allegations specifically as you understand them? There’s obviously a wide range in sexual harassment. What did he do?
JONATHAN MARTIN: We-, we-, well we have to be careful about that obviously, because we’re sensitive to –
GEIST: Of course –
MARTIN: — the sourcing involved here. And also, what also happened to these women as well–we want to be sensitive to that, too. It includes both verbal and physical gestures. These women felt uncomfortable, they were unhappy about their treatment, and they complained to both colleagues and senior officials. In one case it involved, I think, inviting a woman up to a hotel room of Cain’s on the road. Um, but, we-, we-, we’re just not going to get into the details of exactly what happened with these women beside what’s in the story.
Frankly, that’s not going to cut it. If the women have decided to start telling people about their claims, then they should identify themselves and tell the whole story. If it’s others who are talking about these claims and the women aren’t the sources for Politico, then that brings up a good question as to whether Politico has the details right in the first place. Either way, if Politico wants to run a piece accusing a presidential candidate of sexual harassment in his past, then its readers deserve all of the details so that they can make up their minds about whether the accusers and the accusations are credible.
Update II: Jazz Shaw has more thoughts, especially on the differences between this and the Anita Hill story.
I agree with Ann Coulter on this one. Libs are terrified of conservative Black men. Look what they did to Clarence Thomas. They have tried to rip apart others as well.
Isn’t it interesting how the MSM puts out stuff like this on a Sunday night when its a conservative. If it was a democrat it would have been a Friday afternoon...on a Holiday weekend....just after some terrorist attack or earthquake.
Until I see the faces and know the names of these two “uncomfortable” smear artists, I’m not buying any of it. I’d bet a dollar to a donut that they are both big Obama supporters.
This story is so predictable. Isn’t this what Dems do to conservative black men? Paint them as horrific, grabbing/molesting/sexual deviants that are just waiting to “prey” on your women?!! They can’t be trusted... they are just waiting to rip off some young, innocent woman’s clothes and “force” themselves onto them!!! Until there is a LOT more to this story (like true details, a police report.. something credible), I am calling shenanigans.
I’m not buying it. This is really thin. I am from GA and I have never heard one bad thing about Herman. This did not come up during his US Senate race in 2004.
Tokyo Rove is very proud of himself today.
Exactly! Talk about racist. The Lefties ARE the racists. It’s so obvious. Good points.
When you work with females, one must accept that you can NEVER face your accuser.
Obama was a drug user, including by his own admission, a user of cocaine.
Herman allegedly asked a woman to his hotel room. Many businessmen work while traveling.
Uh, which is worse?
We know that sexual misconduct is “not impeachable” when it comes to liberals. A conservative smoking a cigarette is awful; but, a liberal doing cocaine is, well, it’s actually a good thing.
This doesn’t mean we can justify being hypocrites like the liberals. These could have been two prissy ladies who simply didn’t like Cain’s style; or, two modern day gold diggers, using the lawyer route. I’m not sure we know enough, one way or another.
Let’s not imply that this kind of stuff does not happen. It does - probably far more than many would wish to believe. I’ve been on the receiving end myself way before any laws were constructed. I dressed and acted professionally for several reasons and one was to avoid any kind of shenanigans, but I still had to deal with a couple of yahoos. Considering the number of men I have worked with, I think it’s pretty good that I only had two bad experiences; but I can’t help but empathize with the poor soul who might have had one of them for her direct supervisor.
I'd vote for a sack of manure before voting for a big government liberal like Romney, and I'd eat the sack of manure before voting for an evil, anti-American communist druggie like Obama. Considering those options, Cain looks genuinely good. I'd like to find great, and Cain might eventually rise to that level, but at least he's good.
If a settlement was reached... where’s the beef? Most settlements will state no guilt in the matter.
When Cain supposedly invited a woman to a hotel room, did he then:
Drop his pants and ask for a blow job?
Lie about relationships with other women?
Use the private parts of a young female staffer to moisten his cigar?
Have a young intern engage in oral/anal contact?
Were the tires of one accuser slashed and their pet went missing?
Was an accuser asked about the health of her kids?
Was an accuser hit with an IRS audit?
Did he call a young intern at 2am to let her know she was now a witness against him and another witness’s brother had just been killed in a hit and run?
Did a private eye, who claimed an accuser’s tape of the politician was faked, later go to jail for threats against witnesses? Was C-4 found in his safe and at trial was it said this private eye was good at making murder look like suicide?
Without denying that real harassment can and does occur, I just think people in general are sick of this kind of accusation. And, most people don’t understand the law, or the legal definition - and thus automatically assume “the worst”. Here’s an excerpt from the EEOC website:
“Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).”
One person’s “offhand comment” may turn into another person’s “harassment”. Especially if, for example, that person is under pressure for poor performance. I have personally experienced a situation where a female employee made vague allegations of “sexual harassment” NOT coincidentally, the day after she received a tough performance review.
Anyone can make an allegation. Any molehill can be turned into a mountain inside a persons imagination, or with sufficient motive. Resolving these issues takes time and costs money, and there are cases where a quick settlement that gets the person out of the organization is the expedient route.
Just remember, we don’t know the facts. No one other than those involved do. And we don’t know whether any allegations that may have been made are true or not.
If you are asking me to prioritize a moral flaw... I would say using coke. That is illegal. That being said, I predicted this type of story about six weeks ago. It is just so darn PREDICTABLE; thus, until there is proof.. I’m ignoring it.
Really! . . . Well, I never! . . . That's unconscionable. . .
I'm trying, I really am. And the tort alleged is, "Made them angry and uncomfortable." Say, let's ask Bill Clinton for his insight on this one, shall we?
The liberal media really are bottom feeding scum. The day the anarchy they are begging for finally breaks out I know exactly where I'm going.
That exact point was made by Donald Trump this morning at 7:30 AM on Fox & Friends.
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