The Cain Accusations

As virtually anyone with any interest in news probably knows by now, Politico (no link; they don't deserve even the minor traffic I would generate) floated some incendiary charges against GOP presidential candidate, Herman Cain, that in the 1990s, when he was CEO of  the National Restaurant Association, he was accused of sexual harassment by two women. The women have not come forward, but Politico alleges that:

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.

In one case, it is alleged that Cain commented that the woman was about as tall as his wife (who is quite short, apparently around 5' and made a gesture to show how tall she was:

"She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying -- and I was standing close to her -- and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife. And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, 'My wife comes up to my chin.'" At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin. "And that was put in there [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable," Cain said, "something that was in the sexual harassment charge."

Hey, that's easily worth $100,000, don't you think?

So we have women, who, if they are telling the truth, are violating their confidentiality agreement, claiming that Cain did something they really won't tell us about, except that it made them angry...  As Insty asks, would they run a story on Obama that was based on such poorly sourced data?  At least Anita Hill came forward by name.

True story.  Back in the 90s, while Herman Cain was CEO of the restaurant association, I had a technician, let's call her "Flo", who was a very good, very conscientious worker.  She was also a devout Christian, of a fairly fundamentalist sect, and took her religion very seriously.  She and I did a lot of work to together, and when things don't work, I'm prone to swearing.  Yep, bad habit, I know.  I don't swear at people but I do swear at situations and my own screw ups.  "Flo" didn't like that, and reported it to one of my superiors, who almost apologetically reported it to me during an annual evaluation.  I tried to do better around "Flo" in the meantime, and we parted on good terms when she went back to school.

I still swear at shit...  Anyway, somewhere, ensconced in a file at an institution I no longer work at, is a piece of paper that claims I say bad things to women, on occasion, just waiting to rear it's ugly head the day I try to run for national office.