Herman Cain to Conduct
Press Conference in Phoenix
In response to the allegations made [Monday] by Gloria Allred, Mr. Cain will conduct a press conference on Tuesday, November 8th at the Scottsdale Plaza in Phoenix, Arizona at 3:00 pm local time [5 p.m. ET].
It is noteworthy that Gloria Allred is a celebrity lawyer who specializes in generating publicity for herself and her clients.
Ms. Allred is a high-profile Democrat Party donor and activist who has given over ten thousand dollars to liberal Democrats like Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
The questions the media should be asking are who’s paying for Gloria Allred’s fee, how did Ms. Bialek get introduced to Ms. Allred, and was she paid to come forward with these false accusations or was she promised employment?
After attacking Herman Cain through anonymous accusers for a week, his opponents have now convinced a woman with a long history of severe financial difficulties, including personal bankruptcy, to falsely accuse the Republican frontrunner of events occurring over a decade ago for which there is no record, nor even a complaint filed.
We will release more information as it becomes available.
The predicate of those gags, of course, was Ace’s previous assault on Rush Limbaugh for having asserted that all rock-ribbed True Conservatives are standing strong with Herman Cain. So Ace is in the Gloat Zone, which isn’t exactly good news for Herman Cain and therefore was also enough to make my Monday especially Monday-ish.
A former employee of the United States Agency for International Development says Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain asked her to help arrange a dinner date for him with a female audience member following a speech he delivered nine years ago. . . .
“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 recalled.
“I think [Cain] should not be a serious candidate for the presidential nomination because of what I’ve seen,” said Donella, an independent who said she voted for President Obama in 2008 and probably will again next year. “He’s not a person I would want running the country.”
You see how the Penumbra of Suspicion envelops everything at this point, and causes us to ask how the shadow can possibly be lifted. Whereas last week, I could shrug at the Cain critics who were carping about what they saw as the ineptitude of Team Cain’s response, now I’m wondering: What would a “good” response look like, given the changed nature of the story? Is any “good” response really possible?
See, it was one thing to hear people criticize Team Cain’s media strategy, because there isn’t a Republican operative above the rank of intern who doesn’t consider himself an expert on media strategy. That kind of carping is therefore routine and expected, and I could play the same game, if I wanted to degrade myself to the status of Wannabe GOP “Media Strategist.”
Squawking from a bunch of dime-a-dozen assholes doesn’t bother me much. What started bothering me late last week, however, was the hunch that all the clever media strategy in the world might be futile, and that the fate of Cain’s campaign was really not contingent on “strategy” at all. If I were in a position to advise Cain at this moment, the only thing I could advise him is to pray.
The MSM will do its “penance” for ignoring Juanita Brodderick by conferring absolute moral authority upon Sharon Bialek, who (again, if its all true, and we really will never know) has had the good luck of experiencing such a sickening encounter at the hands of a Republican candidate for president, and not a Democrat. She will be believed, at least, and she will not be trashed. And for her sake and her son’s I’m glad of that.
Will conservatives passively accept the power of the media (and Gloria Allred) to choose the GOP’s presidential candidate? Will there be no pushback from conservatives against this?
This presumption would seem to ignore the possibility that Cain’s supporters might react by saying, “To hell with this! We don’t give a damn what happened in 1997! We’re tired of these kinds of sleazy games and we’re sticking with Herman Cain!”
Just as the country finally begins to refocus on our crippling $15 trillion national debt and the unacceptably high unemployment rate, now activist celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred is bringing forth more false accusations against the character of Republican front-runner Herman Cain.
All allegations of harassment against Mr. Cain are completely false. Mr. Cain has never harassed anyone. Fortunately the American people will not allow Mr. Cain’s bold “9-9-9 Plan”, clear foreign policy vision and plans for energy independence to be overshadowed by these bogus attacks.
She didn’t report the incident because she was “embarrassed.”
Bialek saw Cain at a Tea Party event last month and asked “Do you remember me?”
“I really didn’t want to be here today.”
At end of her statement, she giggled. She talked about her new hairdo.
Allred confirms that Bialek did not notify NRA about the incident. Bialek smiled. Won’t comment when asked about the “emotional trauma” of the incident.
So Bialek is single with a teenage child, with no discernible means of income, and employing a top Democrat hit woman celebrity attorney and her employment law partner.
Over the weekend at the AFP conference, several people told me that they had reason to believe this story was coming from Chicago. IYKWIMAITYD. And while this kind of suspicion has nothing to do with the truth or falsehood of the accusation, it is certainly interesting. While I have always suspected Team Perry of pushing the story, the idea that Team Obama might be responsible cannot be ruled out.
Summary of press conference: Woman alleges that in 1997 after her employment terminated with a National Restaurant Association affiliate, Cain made a single sexual advance at her which she rebuffed and which he stopped after she said no. So the allegation is not one of workplace “sexual harassment” but of an alleged attempt at infidelity.
A variety of people on Twitter are characterizing this as a “serious sexual assualt,” but that is farfetched. Assuming what she says is true, he stopped when she said to stop and she did not allege any actual sexual touching, only an attempt. She says she mentioned to two people at the time that Cain was sexually inappropriate, but did not mention to details to them.
In an interview after Ms. Bialek’s news conference, Joel P. Bennett, a lawyer for one of Mr. Cain’s anonymous accusers, said that Ms. Bialek’s claims were “very similar” in nature to the incident that occurred between his client and Mr. Cain…
“It corroborates the claim,” Mr. Bennett said of Ms. Bialek’s allegation. Asked whether that meant that Mr. Cain had physically touched his client inappropriately, Mr. Bennett said “I can’t get more specific” but added that “I can say it is corroborating.”
EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .
UPDATE 2:38 p.m. ET: The press conference is over and so we now must think about what we’ve just heard.
Did Sharon Bialek’s account of events seem plausible? Yes.
If you had 14 years to develop a narrative of an event that happened in 1997, would your account of that event be plausible? Also, yes.
We have here the basic “he-said, she-said” problem involved in such cases. What Bialek says happened would be very bad if it actually happened as she describes it. But there were no witnesses, there is no evidence, and the affidavits of two people to whom Bialek told her story in 1997 are inadmissable as hearsay. You could not convict Herman Cain in court based on such evidence, and yet the behavior described, if it is not criminal, certainly does fit within the category of “sexual harassment.” However . . .
There is no need to minimize the seriousness of sexual harassment in order to understand the difficulties that arise from trying to reach the hurdle of “beyond a reasonable doubt” involving private behavior where witnesses and evidence are lacking, and where the rights of the accused are derided as irrelevant. Liberals who hold candlelight vigils for condemned cop-killers will, without any sense of irony, insist that whenever a man is accused of sexual misconduct by a woman, the man must automatically be presumed guilty.
Well, it is not for me to decide how people react to this accusation, and so I will cease to offer my own reaction, except to say: Why wait 14 years? Oh. That’s right: The accused is leading the GOP field for president.
So if you make a pass at a woman, and are rejected, you can kiss good-bye whatever plans you had for becoming president — as a Republican.
I’ll be back to aggregate the headlines and blog reaction.
UPDATE 2:08 p.m. ET: Cain allegedly fondled her leg and tried to kiss her while they were alone in a car, Bialek says. When she said stop, he did. And so your headline is:
DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE SAYS
HERMAN CAIN MADE A PASS AT HER
UPDATE 2:01 p.m. ET: Bialek “reached out” to Cain after being terminated from her job. He met her at the Capitol Hilton in July 1997, where he had arranged for her to have the presidential suite. Bialek and Cain met at the lobby bar, then went to dinner at an Italian restaurant.
UPDATE 1:57 p.m. ET: The accuser is Sharon Bialek.
UPDATE 1:40 p.m. ET: Either the press conference is late in beginning or else the cable news networks aren’t carrying it live. Will update as soon as facts are available.
Herman Cain and Sexual Harassment New Woman Who Alleges Sexual Harassment By Cain
To Hold News Conference With Her Attorney Gloria Allred.
A woman who alleges that she was sexually harassed by Presidential hopeful, Herman Cain, when she sought his help with an employment issue when he was President of the National Restaurant Association will hold a news conference with her Attorney, Gloria Allred on Monday, November 7th, at 1:30 p.m. (e.s.t.) at the Friars Club, 57 East 55th Street New York, NY 10022.
The woman is not one of the three women who have previously been reported to have alleged sexual harassment by Cain.
Ms. Allred’s client will be the first to give her name and to speak out about details of what she alleges occurred between her and Cain.
Note: Credentialed Press Only – Cameras may begin to set up at 12:30 p.m. at the Friars Club.
Note: There will be no interviews or questions answered before the news conference.
My personal feeling is that this is the best thing that can happen to Herman Cain in this situation. He cannot refute vague accusations, and the credibility of his accusers cannot be assessed so long as the accusers remain anonymous. So for a woman to come forward, under her own name, and make her accusations under the glare of the Klieg lights — this is good news if Cain is innocent, as he has insisted. More headlines:
Because I was out running “honey-do” errands this morning, I missed the initial announcement. Smitty posted the first alert and then called to tell me about it. Smitty’s “zombie/brains” metaphor is clever.
Perhaps at some future flesh-time meeting, Smitty and I can have a discussion about the factors involved in deciding whether a breaking news development should be headlined with clever metaphors, puns, allusions, etc. At any rate — spilled milk, water under the bridge, hindsight 20/20 — our cleverness quota having already been amply fulfilled on this story, I decided to go with the Joe Friday just-the-facts-ma’am headline on this follow-up, which will be the live-blog report.
Via Drudge, Radar Online reports that Gloria Allred will lend her considerable legal credibility to the search for the first substantial allegation against Herman Cain:
A new woman alleging sexual harassment by presidential hopeful Herman Cain will break her silence at a news conference with her powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred Monday afternoon in New York City, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting.
The embattled GOP nominee has admitted that several women who worked at the National Restaurant Association during his tenure as president of the organization received settlements. Politico has reported that the settlements were given because of sexual harassment allegations.
It would nearly be a relief if something other than rent seeking went on and the National Restaurant Association. Unfortunately, it appears to have been rent seeking then, and rent seeking now, with a political twist.
Helen Thomas could not be reached for comment. One hopes that does not mean she is the accuser.
Expect that this story will absorb a few more rounds from the ol’ pump action before it stays down.
Exit question: Is the addition of ambulance-chaser Allred more boon than bane to Cain?
Well, it’s a bane in the sense that the media will re-inflate the flatus fable bubble. However, it’s a boon in the sense that, the longer the factual vacuum goes on, the more it appears that the women who brought allegations forward at NRA were rent seekers.
It would also be cool if we could find a way to strike a blow against the Bogus Lawsuit Industry. We must pursue justice and try to minimize the market for frivolous allegations, which these certainly appear to be.
Update II:Hot Air offers some background on the all-wet Allred. Peanut salesmen at the press conference will rejoice at the fine circus.
“This could have been Tim Pawlenty’s moment. With many Republicans writing off Rick Perry, worried Herman Cain can’t last, and perpetually dissatisfied with Mitt Romney, the former Minnesota governor might have gotten another look, had he stayed in the race. Given all the changes that have taken place in the GOP presidential contest, who knows? Pawlenty might have been a serious contender by now.
“Instead, Pawlenty is at home, having quit immediately after finishing third in the Aug. 13 Ames, Iowa, Republican straw poll. He has endorsed Romney — in what seemed a not-terribly-enthusiastic gesture — and he has publicly mused that maybe he got out too early. Indeed, there must be moments where Pawlenty kicks himself for bailing out of a race that proved much more volatile than anyone thought.”
— Byron York, “Pawlenty coulda been contender in this race”
No, sir, Mr. York. You’re completely wrong. Pawlenty’s mistake wasn’t quitting too soon. Pawlenty’s mistake was running for president.
Whatever his merits, Pawlenty lacks charisma. He’s less charismatic than Mitt Romney, and that’s saying something.
It is probably unfair that so many Americans believe that they can judge a man’s qualification for high office based on how he seems on TV. This process favors people who are good at seeming qualified, regardless of whether they actually are qualified. Nevertheless, we must live in the real world, and the reality is that “Minnesota Nice” didn’t play well on TV.
Back when he was actually running, people kept telling me that Pawlenty seemed weak in the debates. And the word “seemed” is inescapable in that formulation. Regardless of whether Pawlenty is weak, he seemed that way to a lot of people, and this was enough to destroy his candidacy. Because apparently the voters reckoned that whoever goes up against Obama must be ostentatiously strong. The fact that Michele Bachmann seemed stronger on TV than Pawlenty . . .
Finish that sentence however you wish. The point is that Byron York or anyone else who thinks Pawlenty would fare better now than he did three months ago is deluded. Pawlenty just didn’t have what it takes, and York’s revisionist “what if” hypothesis points to what was wrong with the idea of Pawlenty’s candidacy from the start. Pawlenty’s campaign was always more plausible in theory than it was in fact.
“Successful two-term Midwestern governor” is, theoretically, a splendid description of a presidential candidate. But when the successful two-term Midwestern governor has the demeanor of an undertaker, the theory is much less splendid than it might appear on paper.
Perhaps you get my point. The TV Age doesn’t necessarily require successful presidential candidates to look like movie stars, although being an Evil Dead ringer for Bruce Campbell certainly hasn’t hurt Mitt Romney. Yet it is amazing that candidates like Pawlenty and Daniels, who simply don’t look the part, always strike pundits as so eminently plausible. Ditto the jolly jelly belly from Jersey, Chris Christie.
Also, Byron, you get a five-point foul for invoking “many Republicans” as a sock-puppet for espousing your own sense of the campaign. It’s a convenient rhetorical device, but it’s sort of a push-poll kind of thing — the “suggested sell,” as they say in food service: “Would you like to add a fried apple pie to your Value Meal, sir?”
“Many Republicans” can be deployed endlessly, e.g.: “Many Republicans are glad they don’t have to worry any longer about that boring blowhard Tim Pawlenty,” or “Many Republicans don’t even remember that a guy named Tim Pawlenty was ever a candidate for president.”
The last thing in the world we need at this point is a bunch of woulda-coulda-shoulda second-guessing over stuff that we can’t go back and change. Pawlenty is gone, and best forgotten, and I don’t want to hear any more about him.
Getting to hear my state’s rock star Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, at the Defending the American Dream Summit was every bit the treat that was expected.
moderator, Betsy McCaughey, Ken Cuccinelli, Congressman Andy Harris (MD)
Leading off and actually upstaging him slightly however, was former NY LT Governor, Betsy McCaughey (pronounced like ‘McCoy’) who had the finest blend of passion and wonkery I’ve ever seen. Also, she was substantially obscured by a copy of ObamaCare in a binder on the podium, and clearly knows the legislation better than most Congressmen.
She discussed the Dartmouth Hoax, which was news to me. She noted that the number of ObamaCare wavers sits at 1470. She finished: “The rule of law is king, not Mr. Obama!”
When Cuccinelli came up, he mentioned that Virginia’s separate case has been folded in with the other 28-state (!) package of cases. The Supreme Court is to be reviewing the cases starting on or around the 10th of November, with some sort of decision, notionally, in the June timeframe. That will afford time for #OccupyResoluteDesk to develop the “Workin’ hard, tryin’ ta overcome that sandbaggin’ GOP Congress narrative’. As a litmus test for whether somebody is competent to vote, such nonsense would work. The percentage of the American electorate that would fail that test would probably be depressing.
Representative Andy Harris (MD-1) rounded out the conference. He allowed that he was one of six medical doctors elected to repeal ObamaCare, which he called a proxy for the Tea Party/Socialism struggle. Considering his 30 years as a practicing physician, he said that he’d seen the emphasis shift over time from the patient to the paperwork. He said that the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a de facto “Death Panel”, and that Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are the HMO of the 21st century. He offered a laundry list of real reforms to health care management, in the spirit of the phrase “Patients and their doctor, not a bureaucrat.”
Joel Bennett, whose client is one of two women that lodged written sexual harassment complaints against Cain during his three-year tenure leading the group, did not identify the woman. He said she felt “there is no value of revisiting the matter now or discussing it further publicly or privately. In fact, it is extremely painful to do so.”
Emphasis on “now.” As if to say, ABC News wants to wait until the week before the Iowa caucuses to have your client sit down for her hour-long prime-time interview with Dianne Sawyer. Right?
Update (Smitty): Da Tech Guy explores the situation at length. I agree with Pete that this has been a good acid test for the Cain campaign, and will curry sympathy with the base. Pete is having a fundraiser, which merits your attention. Pete, however, links Dave Weigel: “Cainaquiddick: Where Source-Based Journalism Goes to Die” Really, Dave, the -quiddick? Did a young woman die here? Did Herman Cain demonstrate a non-grasp of the difference between an automobile and a submarine? This piffle didn’t even rate a -gate, much less a -quiddick. At ease, young man.
UPDATE II (RSM):Jim Geraghty: “Despite all the drama of the week, we know about as much as we did Monday.” Which is the basic point I made this morning: “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Politico?”
UPDATE III (RSM): Professor William Jacobson catches both Politico and the New York Times spinning the lawyer’s ridiculous press conference — at which he announced his client would not speak to the media — as having “confirmed” the accusations. Is it any wonder that lawyers and journalists are the most hated professions in America?
The Net Neutrality panel at the Defending the American Dream Summit was, oh, a little bit important, if you don’t want your country starting to resemble China, or Iran.
Phil Kerpen, Congressman Marsha Blackburn (TN), Seton Motley, David Quinalty
What you need to know about Net Neutrality is that it is an un-Constitutional effort by the Executive branch to do Congress’ job. Congressman Marsha Blackburn (who expressedly disavows concern for Political Correctness in titles) is doing fabulous work to preserve the unfettered expression of capitalism that is the internet as we know it. She is sponsoring HR96, which would prevent the FCC from implementing Net Neutrality.
The World's Youngest Blogger on an FCC-free computer this morning.
David Quinalty called Net Neutrality ‘a solution in search of a problem’, noting that no single marketplace problem justifies the FCC’s attempted over-reach. The FCC has granted itself unlimited power to regulate communication, according to Quinalty. On the other hand, the Congressional Review Act offers some hope of getting a Net Neutrality Appeal out of Congress, if not actually signed into law by #OccupyResoluteDesk.
Net Neutrality is evil for two reasons:
It inevitably will lead to a direct assault on the Constitution, the First Amendment in particular. If you think this is a slippery slope argument, you’re ignoring history.
It, in the spirit of ObamaCare, will be used as a precedent, in unforeseeable ways, to put further restrictions on liberty.
Net Neutrality is one of the issues we should be spamming our Senators about, telling them, under no uncertain terms, to boil the Net Neutrality horse down for glue.
