Posted on 11/03/2011 8:59:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mind you, at around the same time this WaPo scoop was breaking, Robert Costa of NRO was tweeting the following:
Block to @NRO 2nite: No more squabbling with campaigns over P’co story. No more fingerptng, period. “Sick of this,” he says of back-n-forth
Smart thinking. Best to forge ahead, hope the story sputters out this weekend, and get back to messaging about 9-9-9. Forget about Politico. Right?
Over to you, anonymous Cain aide:
A Herman Cain aide said Thursday that the Cain campaign is considering its legal options over the original Politico story, which revealed that the former head of the National Restaurant Association was accused of sexually harassing at least two women during his tenure in the 1990s.
“This is likely not over with Politico from a legal perspective,” a campaign official told the Post, stopping short of explaining what exactly he meant by taking legal action against the publication.
The Cain campaign has had an attorney advising it since Saturday on crisis management, which hasn’t gone particularly well for Cain since the story broke Sunday night.
This isn’t a real threat, just a bit of saber-rattling to impress primary voters who don’t know the ins and outs of defamation law. (The claim they’re hinting at here, presumably, is defamation. I don’t know what else it could be.) His lawyers would need to prove that Politico either knew their story was false or that they published it with reckless disregard for the truth. That’d be a mighty heavy lift considering (a) Politico relied on multiple, albeit anonymous, sources to substantiate its claims and (b) Cain doesn’t dispute the crux of the story, that he was accused of harassment by two women and they received settlements from the NRA. There’s no way Team Cain would file a suit that they’ll probably lose — the headlines in the aftermath would make it sound like the harassment charges had been vindicated — and even if they thought they’d win, they’d be saddling themselves with a completely unneeded distraction during the primaries. In fact, by the time this thing reached the litigation stage, the primaries would probably be long over and Cain’s fate already sealed one way or another. If he wins the nomination, who cares about beating Politico in court?
I’m not sure they could even use discovery to try to find out Politico’s sources. Again, that process would take so long that no one would care anymore by the time the names were revealed, and there’s a fair chance Politico would actually succeed in keeping the names confidential. Some states grant legal privileges to journalists in protecting their sources; Virginia, where Politico is based, is one. I won’t pretend to have a clue whether they’re likely to win or lose — here’s a primer, if you care — but they’d have a shot. And of course Team Cain knows it, which means the “maybe we’ll sue!” fireworks are really aimed at convincing grassroots conservatives that Politico’s story was so slimy and unfair that it might sink to the level of being legally actionable even though it almost certainly isn’t. Surf the wave of conservative outrage at media bias, Hermanator.
Here’s Perry on CNN tonight vowing that he won’t apologize when he didn’t do anything wrong.
great!
Stop thinking!... GO!
These bastards are not going to think twice about doing it again until you do!... Regardless!
Time to put THEIR ASSES on defense for a change!
DO IT!
Bad move. Bad politics. Rank stupidity.
Bad move. Bad politics. Rank stupidity.
Donald Trump said on Greta’s program last night, that Herman Cain should file a lawsuit against his accusers.
RE: Bad move. Bad politics. Rank stupidity.
Can you elaborate as to why?
SAF, you really can’t see the downside of a politician suing a media outlet? He is telegraphing weakness.
I think what he should do is keep threatening to sue, which sends the message that he’s being truthful and this is a firestorm created by the media. But I’m not sure he should actually do it, because this whole thing will blow over in a short time - things like this always do - and why would he want to do something in the heat of the moment that might come around to bite him in the critical months ahead by giving the story new life? Besides, there’s no rush to file suit, and a pretty good chance that new information will come to light that will discredit his accusers without it.
Stupid and pointless thing to say. Which more and more seems par for this course.
The candidate himself confirmed the story was true. Sexual harassment complaints WERE made and cash WAS paid. Doesn’t leave much maneuvering room for the litigators.
Sue for an outlet revealing something that he admits happened? Bad move. Rush, I believe, talked about 2 other women with stories today, one of which was very disturbing and hopefully untrue as I hope the other ones are.
I listened to Rush for most of his show today and didn’t hear anything about him talking with 2 of the women accusers.
Can you elaborate?
EXCELLENT NEWS! He should include PJ Media as well. AND, they had better get to the bottom of who exactly leaked this to Politico. IF it was “Perry’s guy” as Jonathan Martin has alleged then THAT needs to be shouted far and wide as well (although I admit that I don’t trust ANYTHING said by Martin or published on Politico after their yellow journalism in late 2007/early 2008).
Why didn't Bill Clinton think of this tactic in 1998? Sue Matt Drudge for breaking the Lewinsky story and see it go away, instead of spending more than one-quarter of his second term battling Ken Starr and the House Judiciary Committee over the scandal.
Cain and his campaign keep bumping this story willy nilly and clumsily for several days now.
Get the response, defense/offense, facts, documents, whatever, together, in a good strategy well executed and then pull the trigger on it.
This is not the way to handle a scandal.
Iit was Rush. 20 something employee got drunk at a party and Cain took her back to his Crystal City apartment where she woke up not knowing where she was or what happened.
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