I’m not a lawyer (I’m an engineer), but you may find my take on the use of the word “documentation” useful or interesting (or not - LOL).
Politico reported a rumor, essentially. They had a person who called them, that said they had a beef, and who claimed to have some form of proof. From what I have been able to gather, they did not get access to any form of proof, but instead relied on the juiciness of the story to “vouch” for its veracity.
What Cain means here, I think, is that Politico reported on what it wanted to be true before it had any evidence beyond hearsay that it might be true. If Politico failed to even make records their alleged conversations, then they failed to produce indirect documentation as well.
The legal term “documentation” appears to be a small extension from the engineering term, where various data are commonly summarized into written form with references to the underlying data. It appears that the summarized references to the underlying data (at best) or the underlying data (at worst) were missing from the Politico portfolio.
JMO, natch...
Thanks. In summary, I thought Politico's very first article (out of are now hundreds) said there were two claims, and it was vague about them. It appeared that Politico's source was either at (or was formerly at) the National Restaurant Association or had previously been connected with Herman Cain, because the source knew of two claims.
Herman Cain promptly identified the leak by name: a man who consulted on his Senate campaign, whom Cain had told of one claim so that the campaign would be prepared if the issue arose, and whom now supported Perry in some capacity.
My only point in getting on this thread was that someone posted a twenty-minute video, and that was only the first part of the interview; he was asking for help in linking the second part. Normally, the headline of a thread or video summarizes the primary 'take-home' point from the video. I didn't have time to watch a twenty-minute video, nor the second part.
But it appeared that the main point of perhaps forty minutes of video was that Politico didn't have 'documentation.'
To me, that seemed like a strawman argument unless there was more to that argument in the video, so I asked if somebody could summarize.
As I've explained, some of the greatest sources for legitimate news stories in the world may not have documentation. Actually, the story of the Empty Tomb in the Gospels is a perfect example of reporting that many of us believe not only to be true, but to be True, and yet Mary had no documentation.
So this entire kerffufle is about me saying "is that it? That's it? Twenty to forty minutes and the most important thing is that the source had no documentation? Seriously? That was all? Can somebody please explain precisely what source was identified in this video, and what story that source told to Politico, that was supposed to have documentation?"
Because if the first person to leak the story was the former NRA executive who was connected to Marriott, and therefore connected to Romney, he may have knowledge but he wouldn't have any documentation unless he had access to files to make a photocopy and deliver it to Politico. Or any of those other "there wouldn't be documentation" reasons I've listed above.
So to somebody who watched the video, why is 'no documentation' the most fundamental point of the entire video?