The Knives Come Out for Cain
Politico has a big headline this morning: "GOP urges Herman Cain to address allegations." But when you ask "who precisely in the GOP is doing this urging?" you get a more modest list:
Oran Smith, who heads the Christian conservative Palmetto Family Council in South Carolina, Chuck Hurley, the President of the Iowa Family Policy Center, Penny Nance who runs Concerned Women for Amierca, William Bennett, the conservative author and commentator, Governor, Haley Barbour, and fellow presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
But if the list is short, it is also revealing: It is heavy with Christian conservatives willing to express public qualms about Herman Cain. Conservatives may not have yet have conceded that sexual harassment is a real thing, but alleged sexual assault--that violates acknowledged moral norms.
The qualms of people like Bennett, Garner, Smith and Hurley contrast sharply with the brutally sexualized indifference of Herman Cain fans Rush Limbaugh and Dick Morris, the latter speaking on Fox News' Sean Hannity show.
It's telling that the central communications network of the conservative world remains--for all its professed concerns about the war against Christmas--much more "Mad Men" than 700 Club in its attitude to women. On Fox, women exist as talking pinups, their opinions valued to the extent that their legs are shapely and their hair is blonde. Increasingly it looks like Herman Cain may well share those attitudes much more than the faith-and-family culture of the Christian conservative who plumped his poll numbers over the past weeks.
Meanwhile, there's also this, from Politico:
A former USAID worker claims Herman Cain asked her to set up dinner with a woman who attended a speech he gave in 2002, strong>the Washington Examiner is reporting tonight<.
The worker — 40-year-old Donna Donella, of Arlington, Va. — told the paper that the moment came after Cain gave a paid speech in Egypt that year. A woman in the crowd posed a query to Cain during the speech, the Examiner said.
Donella told them: “And after the seminar was over, Cain came over to me and a colleague and said, ‘Could you put me in touch with that lovely young lady who asked the question, so I can give her a more thorough answer over dinner?’”
Donella was "suspicious of Cain's motives and declined to set up the date," the Examiner reporter wrote.
That prompted Cain to reply, "Then you and I can have dinner." Instead, some of Donella's co-workers suggested a group outing.
“I couldn’t swear that he had some untoward intentions, but we all thought his tone was suspect and we didn’t feel comfortable putting him in touch with that woman,” Donella, whom the Examiner identified as an independent who voted for President Barack Obama in the last election, was quoted as saying.
She said she didn't witness any "inappropriate sexual behavior" at the group dinner. But she claimed he asked the waiter for two $400 bottles of wine, and then stiffed the rest of the group when it came time to pay.
