Dogging Cain
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Herman Cain's nightmare began two weeks ago when the webzine Politico reported two women had accused him of sexual misconduct when he was president of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.
The story was thin. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal summarized it this way: "Anonymous sources told Politico that unnamed women alleged that Cain said unspecified things."
It triggered a media feeding frenzy anyway. ABC, NBC and CBS reported on the Cain "scandal" 84 times in the first week, according to Scott Whitlock of the Media Research Center.
This contrasts with zero, the number of times in 2008 ABC, NBC and CBS mentioned allegations of sexual misconduct by former Sen. John Edwards when he was running for president that year.
And it contrasts with four, the number of stories the broadcast networks ran in the week after Juanita Broaddrick said she'd been raped by President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Edwards fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was dying of cancer. Mr. Cain, according to Politico, "had conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature."
Journalists who covered the Edwards campaign had inklings about the affair, but chose "to stay away from it," Mark Halperin of Time magazine said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"The standard of proof in this kind of intimate behavior is and should be very high," Michael Orestes, AP's managing editor for U.S. news, said then.
That standard hasn't been applied to Mr. Cain.
Mr. Cain's primary accusers received "five figure" settlements from the National Restaurant Association when Mr. Cain led the organization, Politico reported. But those amounts lend credence to Mr. Cain's assertion he did nothing wrong, said Kurt Schlichter, a trial lawyer who represents businesses in civil litigation.
"Lawsuits are so expensive to defend it makes good business sense to settle even the most frivolous cases," he said. "It's hard to get even the silliest charges tossed out, and even then it often costs upwards of six figures to do so."
Despite the media onslaught, Mr. Cain's poll numbers actually improved. It appeared he might survive the scandal.
First Published November 13, 2011 12:00 am
