So women keep coming out with stories of past harassment by Presidential Candidate Herman Cain. I absolutely believe that he should have a right to defend himself. The thing is that he was the one who chose to jump into the Presidential race. If he was back just doing whatever he does in his job, this really wouldn’t be much of a story. As a candidate, they throw the door open to past and present questions.
I’ve especially watched with interest as he has moves from denials, to explanations, to blame, and finally the public’s response.
– The denial was first a combination of "nothing ever happened" and a sort of "who knows it was a long time ago?" But, that got taken away when it was confirmed that there had been past settlements.
– Explanations have been odd combinations of denials and blaming with a mix of total refusal to walk through what really happened. They have touched on the horrors of a tort system that makes abusers liable and "blame the victim" theories.
– The blame has been thrust on liberals and the media, because this shouldn’t be a story. The thing is, no matter what happened, the response to the charges is as much a story as the story itself. Does he really look like a guy who is going to handle adversity?
– In the end we will have the public’s response. If the claims are true and he did lie about what happened, that should come out. If none of it’s true, then it seems that he could have handled this a lot better. But, with a payment and the numbers, it looks like that is unlikely.
Sexual harassment does happen. Hopefully, those who spoke out and protected themselves will empower those who are being threatened now. As a Candidate for President of the United States, Cain could have gone a long way to help even if every former claim was true. But, the delay, deny, defend strategy always looks easy at first.
A founding partner with Bradshaw & Bryant, Mike Bryant has always fought to find justice for his clients—knowing that legal troubles, both personal injury and criminal, can be devastating for a family. Voted a Top 40 Personal Injury "Super Lawyer" multiple years, Mr. Bryant has also been voted one of the Top 100 Minnesota "Super Lawyers" four times.
7 Comments
Terry Conklin
Pathetic article. Cain has been accused of a quote common mid life event at most. He (maybe) hit on some woman and was rejected. He "took her home immediately" . Big deal. End of story. Lets's get on with our election.
Mike Bryant
Really? Have you watched the number of interviews that he did after the reports? He didn't explain it that way. But let's accept what you say as being the absolute truth, the point is that he could have done a lot by explaining it just as you have.
He didn't and as a candidate it becomes more of a story. Stop with the apologies and blow offs and get to what matters.
Bill
WHO IS TRUTHFUL, BIALEK OR CAIN?
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/16002149/investigator-herman-cain-innocent-of-sexual-advances
Terry Conklin
Lets
Let's try that again:
What matters is how will he deal with our national problems and not how he dealt with vague threats of accusations a decade old. These women have crawled back under their rocks it seems and that is about all that matters. I think he dealt with them well IF they were untrue, which seems to be the case. To spend more time on them would have shown him to be unable to focus on what is important right now which is the electoral process.
Lmum
Women "keep coming out"??? Have there been more that we have not heard about, or is Mike Bryant referring to the four women who all "came out" with accusations last month? It is suspicious that all four women have Chicago connections. Does it not seem odd to anyone else that during all of the alleged behavior supposedly took place during the same very brief time period in Cain's 40+ year business career? The worst claim was that Mr. Cain behaved in a socially unacceptable way towards the woman. None of the women have given the public a credible account of what Cain supposedly did that was socially unacceptable. Meanwhile, many women who have worked with Cain for years have come forward as character witnesses stating that he always treated women with respect and honor. Why are their statements being buried?
Chris
Whether the allegations are true or not, they did exactly what they must have been meant to do- derail Cain's campaign. I don't say that to imply the allegations aren't true, but I hate how things like this don't even come up until a candidate's doing well in the polls. Whether or not the allegations are true, it's a little disturbing to see something of this nature come out right when it did. It feels so... orchestrated.
Mike Bryant
Thanks to each of you for your comments, although seems that Terry can't comment without personally attacking.
- There were settlements and it doesn't look like we will ever hear what happened there.
- Why now? clearly because he is news now. It's a door that every candidate opens up when they run.
- His reaction is important because he controls what he says and we have to assume he knows what the correct story is. If he didn't , he really shouldn't have done the initial interviews.
- As a old story and one that had been settled the whole thing could have been handled in a much better way. It was as much a opportunity for him as it was a issue.
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