Presidential candidate, Herman Cain, has had another trying week on the campaign trail. Those who follow my columns know that I don’t usually write about issues that are salacious in nature, but, the situation with Cain has caused me to make a rare exception.
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Katsy, As my kids would say, “What she said!” I would suggest to the author that perhaps he would benefit from a re-examination of what innocent until proven guilty means. A good article written by my friend Hassan Nuruallah entitled “We Are Far From Him”, helped me put this whole mess in perspective. By the way this guy should be a columnist in your e zine. He’s great.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/nurullah/111201
I completely disagree! You are assuming Cain is guilty in most of this article, but then assume him innocent through the rest of it, rightly understanding that these women have no proof of any relationship or wrong action on the part of Mr. Cain. Let’s assume him to be innocent all the way through. Let’s assume his version of things (as stated in the press conference after Sharon Bialek’s accusations, and his lengthy interview on FoxNews the other day [with Bret Baier? Neil Cavuto? I can't remember]) is correct.
We have 2 anonymous accusers and one named accuser — if they’re lying, there is no possible way he could have known that he would be accused of such misdeeds. None. Had his team asked him, and he answered truthfully, how could he have imagined that he would be accused of sexual harassment by three women he didn’t know, perhaps had never even met nor seen, nor had he ever been in contact with?
Yes, he should have disclosed the past sexual harassment charge to his team, but you’re assuming he didn’t, while that may not be the case [although I haven't followed these stories closely, so maybe you know something I don't know, and aren't just assuming]. Even though the woman who filed the claim has been released from her confidentiality agreement, there are still no details as to what she accused him of [though, again, the Board found him innocent of the charges; and again, it's easy to *say* things, and harder to *prove* them]. Considering some of the innocent things that have been considered “sexual harassment” by people in the past, I’m willing to cut Herman Cain some slack. What if he is telling the truth? — that he was charged with S.H. by this woman, but it was baseless; is a false and baseless claim from 15 years ago supposed to be a sole disqualifying reason not to run? That’s a shame, if so.
As to this woman, again, if Herman Cain looked on her as just a friend [and there is no proof of anything else going on; and those two signed books do seem to indicate his truthfulness, that he was just trying to help her out by writing encouraging thoughts], how on earth could he have known that she was going to turn it into a 13-year affair?! He said in his FoxNews interview that has helped lots of people in the past, giving them money directly, instead of going through government or charitable organizations; “to the pure, all things are pure” — if he is innocent, he would not have looked on his charity towards this woman as possible evidence of adultery, so *could not* have alerted his staff of such a possibility.
I say again, “to the pure, all things are pure” — if he is innocent of any wrong-doing in these areas [and the burden of proof is rightly placed on these women, not on Mr. Cain], false and baseless claims from women he didn’t even know, and from a woman he thought was a friend, could not possibly have been foreseen.