Gospel singer Dottie Rambo had written more than 2,000 songs by
the time she died in 2008, but she remains best known for a 1970
hymn based on the Irish folk tune “Londonderry Air” (the same
melody as “Danny Boy”) which got a memorable performance Monday.
“‘Amazing Grace’ will always be my song of praise, for it was grace
that bought my liberty,” Herman Cain sang in his warm baritone as
he closed his speech at the National Press Club with the chorus
that ends, “He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.”
Whatever his faults, Cain’s need as a Republican
presidential candidate Monday in Washington was to deny previously
private accusations of sexual harassment dating back at least a
dozen years which publicly surfaced Sunday in a Politico
story headlined: “Exclusive: 2 women
accused Herman Cain of inappropriate
behavior.” It was one of the most
curious articles in the history of political scandals: The article
did not name the accusers, reported to be former employees of the
National Restaurant Association, where the former Godfather’s Pizza
CEO was president from 1996 to 1999, and the description of Cain’s
alleged offenses was maddeningly vague. Cain was reportedly accused
of “episodes that left the women upset and offended” and “physical
gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who
experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded
as improper in a professional relationship.” The article also
described “conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal
questions of a sexually suggestive nature,” and quoted one
second-hand source about an allegation of “an unwanted sexual
advance” from Cain.
Without anything more specific — and especially without
any comment from the accusers, who reportedly signed
confidentiality agreements as part of severance agreements with the
restaurant association — such accusations would be impossible to
disprove, but can be denied, and this was what Cain was expected to
do Monday. “In all of my over 40 years of business
experience, running businesses and corporations, I have never
sexually harassed anyone,” Cain told the capacity crowd at the
National Press Club. He said he had been “falsely accused” and that
when the accusation was made, “I recused myself and allowed my
general counsel and human resource officer to handle it.” As for
the reported settlement, Cain said, “I hope it wasn’t for much
because I didn’t do anything.”
Buried far down in the
2,100-word Politico article, below all the allegations
from unnamed sources, were the names of five former officials of
the National Restaurant Association who worked with Cain during his
tenure there, and who said the harassment allegations — which they
had previously never heard — were entirely uncharacteristic of the
man they knew and admired. Denise Marie Fugo praised Cain as “very
gracious,” and Mary Ann Cricchio said, “Herman treated
everyone great.” So the accusers in the scandal remain anonymous,
as do Politico’s secondary sources, while everyone
actually named in the story had only kind words for
Cain.
Politico said it had been pursuing
the story for “several weeks.” Cain’s spokesman, J.D. Gordon, said
other news organizations had previously inquired about the
harassment allegations and declined to pursue the story. And while
Politico said it had a “half-dozen sources” for its
article, those sources did not seem to include the two women who
reportedly made the accusations and received termination
settlements of more than $10,000 (or, as the article said “in
the five-figure range”) from the restaurant association. Although
the women apparently did not talk to Politico, the
reporters wrote that they had “seen documentation describing the
allegations,” thus raising the question: Where did this story come
from?
The natural suspicion with any such story is that someone
was shopping around opposition research, the dossiers of negative
material that campaigns routinely compile on their rivals. Yet
those who push “oppo” to reporters are generally careful to do so
in ways that don’t leave their campaign’s fingerprints, especially
on a story as explosive as this one. In response to
questions Monday at the Press Club, Cain said he had no idea
whether one of his Republican opponents had pushed the story — a
“witch hunt,” he called it. In an impromptu press conference prior
to Cain’s speech, his campaign chief of staff, Mark Block, also
refused to speculate on that topic. “I would find it
hard to believe that anybody with another campaign would do that,”
Block said. “But then again, this is politics.”
Indeed, it is politics, where long-ago complaints by
former employees can be dredged up and turned into a scandal
reported hourly by the cable news networks. And it is politics,
where few reporters took notice when Karol Markowicz, who worked
closely with Cain on his 2004 Senate campaign in Georgia,
strongly defended him in a series of Twitter messages Sunday
evening. “I don’t believe…that Cain behaved
inappropriately.… He never even bordered on inappropriate in the
slightest,” she wrote, adding that she “just can’t believe there’s
anything to the charges.” Markowicz called into Mark Levin’s nationally
syndicated radio show Monday evening to reiterate her defense
of Cain, but other than by me and the
Weekly Standard’s Michael Warren, this obviously
relevant testimonial was ignored by the press. Meanwhile, on MSNBC
— which showed no interest at all in Markowicz or anyone else
vouching for Cain’s good character — Chris Matthews offered one of
the Politico reporters “congratulations
on breaking this story.”
How much “this story” hurts Herman Cain’s presidential
campaign remains to be seen. It is highly unlikely that his
accusers will remain anonymous much longer. Reporters will find the
women and name them and, without regard to confidentiality
agreements, the accusers’ stories will be told somehow. At that
point, voters will be able to evaluate the credibility of the
accusers and the severity of their accusations in a way they cannot
do now, when all they have is “sources say” and vague descriptions
of what it is Cain is alleged to have done.
The political scandal factory will keep grinding away, but
Cain was smiling Monday at the Press Club when he described the
bull’s-eye on his back as the Republican front-runner. Still
narrowly leading former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the
RealClearPolitics national poll average, and even narrowly
ahead of Texas Gov. Rick Perry
in Texas, Cain has already survived three weeks atop the
GOP field. After the Politico story went online Sunday
evening, his supporters began spontaneously organizing prayer
circles on Cain’s behalf, although his ascent to this point has
already seemed miraculous enough.
The Iowa caucuses are barely two months away. If this
potentially damaging scandal doesn’t take him down, it may actually
enhance Cain’s reputation as a conservative invulnerable to the
kind of assaults that the media will surely aim at President
Obama’s Republican challenger in 2012. Winning that kind of
reputation by surviving such a difficult ordeal would an amazing
outcome, although not quite as amazing as the grace that Cain
praised in his song at the National Press Club — a performance for
which he received a standing ovation.
