by Alex Lekas

Created on: November 08, 2011   Last Updated: November 10, 2011

He-said/she-said, hypocrisy, and timing

When Herman Cain ran for the US Senate from Georgia in 2004, no one accused of him anything. When Cain's presidential run was in its improbable stage, the only accusations were of aspirations outpacing reality. But when Cain's poll numbers put him atop the Republican field, the woodwork came alive with the sound of oh-so-conveniently opportunistic accusations of sexual misconduct.  While there is no statute of limitations on truth, there should be one on allegations that can be neither definitively supported nor definitively proven. And then we wonder why more people do not run for political office. 

Maybe Cain acted inappropriately, maybe not; that's the problem with claims that cannot be supported with evidence. More disturbing is the rank hypocrisy from those who side with the accusers, many of whom took an entirely different stance when: 

-Bill Clinton used a girl younger than his daughter as a humidor, and that was on top of the serial dalliances that were alleged by women who used their names and provided dates, times, and places.  
-John Edwards, a man who never failed to exploit personal tragedy for political gain, who not only had an affair while campaigning for the Democratic nomination, he fathered a child with the woman. 
-Barrack Obama claimed that he was the only man in the congregation who did not hear what Jeremiah Wright was all about, and the only man in Chicago unaware of Bill Ayers' past. 

Politics is nasty business and Cain's campaign did him no favors with its slow response in dealing with the first accuser. Of course, the first accuser did not really "accuse" Cain of much; she, through Politico, chose to imply that something of a vague nature had occurred. Another would-be victim either lobbed a similar grenade or allowed it be lobbed, then hid conveniently behind her lawyer. Now cometh Sharon Bialek, literally led by the hand to the podium by Gloria Allred, the attorney who makes Donald Trump look media-shy by comparison. 

Bialek offered up a graphic tale of: two people who were alone, so no one can verify or debunk her claim; a woman comfortable enough with Cain to have asked him help in finding a job but now seeking something else. But what? Bialek claims to want nothing of substance, though it's fair to ask where was she when Cain first announced his candidacy, when his campaign began gaining traction, when he won a couple of straw polls? Evidently, unprovable allegations are no fun against a candidate barely treading water. But, they are a lot more entertaining than pesky things like the economy, questionable federal loans, and the administration's hand in trading two Middle Eastern dictators for sharia-based government.    

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