OK, This has left me almost speechless (luckily, I can still type).
L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to fend off sexual harassment accusations, has warned that any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations “should think twice.”
The Herman Cain camp has adopted the strategy of deny the accusations and attack the accusers. Rush Limbaugh and others are piling on.
Sharon Bialek — whose last name Mr. Limbaugh has pronounced as “buy-a-lick”
[New York Post] columnist Andrea Peyser called Ms. Bialek a “gold digger” who “flirted like a tart” with Mr. Cain.
And now we add to the strategy the intimidation of any other potential accusers.
At what time and in what place am I living again?
This doesn’t make much sense for Cain’s political future if the sexual harassment accusations are false. And if the accusations are true, these are some really, really brave women who are coming forward.
I can think of no other reason, besides guilt, for the Cain campaign to take this scorched-earth direction (as I observed in my apparently-ignored recent post). Even Herman Cain can’t bring himself to say “yes, it’s true that I spent the evening in question with Ms. Bialek, but I didn’t make a pass at her.”
Mr. Cain has carefully avoided denying any of the specifics, especially of Ms. Bailek’s accusations. If he was somewhere else with someone else on the night in question, if her reported room upgrade didn’t happen (surely she filed an expense report? Surely that expense report lists the date, room number, and so on), then I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have a low-level minion come forward, calmly and categorically deny the substance of the entire accusation, and calmly show the documentation.
Instead, he (and the Koch brothers) slam the throttle of the right-wing misogynistic smear machine into full-power plus afterburner, lobbing slime against his accusers, their attorneys, the Democrats, the Perry campaign, and everything else that moves or even thinks about moving.
If I am a street-smart attorney for the accusers (and I hope this is what we see happening), I sit by and let Mr. Cain walk just as far out on this microscopically-thin ice as he’s willing to go. When he is way out there, and way over his head — and when he has pulled the entire right-wing smear machine with him — then I start showing the hard evidence supporting the accusations of my client. I show the hotel bills. I show the day-timer entries. I show that all of the things that can be verified externally have been verified.
I show that he DID upgrade the room. I show that he DID take her to dinner. I show that he DID accompany her home in the back seat of vehicle. I place Mr. Cain in the scene, exactly as described by my client.
I show that Mr. Cain is guilty.
“Think twice” indeed — I think this is the raging of a sexual predator caught with his pants down.
Sounds a lot like Carville talking about dragging a $100 bill through a trailer park, doesn’t it?
It sounds like bully threatening to beat the tar out of anybody who dares expose his actions.
The irony of Newt Gingrich — of all people — being in the same candidate mix is, however, striking.