Cain and sexual "harassment"

DoggerDan

The media feels it needs to give every item "equal time." Thus, a presidential sneeze gets 30 seconds, the same as bronchitis. I once had the "audacity" to tap a female subordinate on the shoulder to get her attention. Why did I have to touch her? She was wearing earphones on the job, which entailed monitoring and using radios, which she couldn't hear because she was listening to her iPod. Before I tapped her on her shoulder, I queried her twice, once in a normal tone of voice, the second rather loudly, much louder than the radios she was supposed to be monitoring. One guess as to her response to my directing her to ditch her iPod while on the job. Fortunately, two witnesses were right there and emphatically supported the truth, so her idiotic effort backfired before it began. The fact that she claimed sexual harassment despite the fact that two witnesses were right there underscores her idiocy. Perhaps she thought it might help keep her from being fired.

Nope.

As for Cain, no physical contact was involved, which tells me it's the liberal, ant-right media which is digging up this speck of dust and shouting it from the mountaintops. This behavior gives the media a VERY bad name, as well as anyone else who joins in the shouting.

chaoseverlasting

Wow. Really? A sexual harassment suit because you tapped someone on the shoulder?

edward

This has Karl Rove written all over it.

WhoWee

There's an old saying - the truth will set you free.

I think this will backfire on the Left - given their earlier defense of President Clinton through his scandals. EVERYBODY can see the hypocrisy in this matter - one more reason not to trust the main stream media.

On the other hand - if Cain is covering up any part of the story - he's done. People will understand and forgive a bumbling/fumbled but truthful response as he's embarrassed and uncomfortable with the topic - but they won't tolerate a lie.

Romney/Gingrich 2012 is looking like the ticket.

russ_watters

I don't know if the charge has merit, but he has so far botched the response effort.

WhoWee

Might be making it worse now.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...candal/247799/

"As the scandal surrounding Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment problem takes on a life of its own, the former pizza titan is hitting back with accusations that the story was a hit job from Rick Perry's campaign."

skeptic2

Where did you hear no physical contact was involved? Do you know who the source was for this story or are you just blaming the usual suspects (the liberal, ant-right media)?

AlephZero

If he wants to be a politician but he can't handle thiis sort of stuff, he's failed. The truth or falsity of the allegations is as irrelevant as whether Obama is really a Martian who converted to Islam.

WhoWee

Politico broke the harassment story.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67398.html

skippy1729

Have Reverend Al and Jesse Jackson weighed in on this yet?

phyzguy

Ah, so you were there when this happened, I take it, otherwise there's no way you could know whether physical contact was involved or not. Please fill us in on what really happened.

DavidSnider

The guys on the right are correct, this will backfire on the left.

The right loves the Herman Cain controversy because it deflects attention away from Perry and Romney eating their own to the 'liberal media conspiracy' against a candidate who never had a chance against Romney anyway.

mege

I had a similar situation to the OP where me (a male) and a male subordinate came around the corner too quickly and collided. I instinctively put my hands on his arms and steadied eachother and guided him around me. He reported the contact to HR whom called me and wanted an explaination. I gave them myside of the story and never heard anything of it again. He was getting fired in a few days for repeated performance failures (he had a specific goal after several months of evaluations and was very far from meeting it), and I think he saw the writing on the wall so was doing any little thing to keep a foothold.

On Cain - I agree he's handling it very poorly. It's hard to reply to oddball accusations without drawing extra attention to them (but at the same time addressing them).

NeoDevin

So you're trying to tell us that physical contact is required for it to be sexual harassment?
Source: Wikipedia

Given that the EEOC is the enforcement agency responsible for dealing with claims of unlawful sexual harassment, I'd say their definition supersedes yours.

Your argument appears to go like this:
"I touched a woman at work once and she cried foul. Because I wasn't sexually harassing her, someone else must touch a woman for it to be sexual harassment."

It's a complete non-sequitur. And that's ignoring the fact that you have no idea of any of the details of what actually happened.

DoggerDan

Never made it past her complaint to HR. They got statements from the witnesses before showing them to her as they fired her.

Agreed. His best response should have been something along the lines of "it was investigated and dismissed." It's not the sort of topic one wants to spend hard-earned media time discussing at length.

daveb

Which is very problematic for Cain - first he says he was unaware of any sexual harrassment lawsuit against him, then later says one of his former advisors leaked the story to Perry's camp - either way, he lied then or is doing so now (by lie, I mean lied about knowing if there was a suit, not that it actuall happened).

DoggerDan

Your claim rests on the false assumption that human memories are perfect.

Mine's not. I've reviewed Cain's interviews on this subject, and they're smack dab in line with the way the human brain remembers relatively un-rememberable events.