Cain Accused of Sexual Harrassment. Something to Worry About? Or Is He Gonna Get Clarence Thomas’ed?

The website Politico has done an investigation and found that while GOP frontrunner Herman Cain was head of the National Restaurant Association, there were two female employees who accused him of sexual harrassment.  The two were asked to leave the NRA in return for receiving cash settlements and promising to keep what happened under wraps.

You can read the article to get the details of the situation, but what comes to mind for me is simply this: how will this play out?  The criticism from the Left is already flying fast and furious.  He’s been called an Uncle Tom.  He’s being used by the Tea Party to cover up their racist leanings.  And so on.  Now, this gives detractors new ammunition.

But I wonder if many of the most vocal detractors will be people who were willing to give former president Bill Clinton a pass.  People who still talk about Anita Hill’s accusations of harrassment of Clarence Thomas while they were at the EEOC say nothing of how accusations of Clinton’s dalliances were floating around well before he ran for and won the presidency.  Paula Jones filed a lawsuit against Clinton in 1994 and was treated like a pariah–until “the dress” appeared and Clinton had to settle and also deal with getting impeached for perjury.

My point is, regardless of which side it happens to, its always interesting to see the reaction from the other side, whose supporters are usually quick to forget that they were fine with what happened when their person did it.  It’s only bad when the other side does it, right?

Having said that, is this something that, if true, should DQ Cain from the race?  Will this pass over, or will this become a stone around his neck?  Stay tuned.

Another Person Who Agrees With Me–Reagan Would Be Persona Non Grata in Today’s GOP

On a couple of different occasions, I wrote about how former President Ronald Reagan probably could get elected by today’s GOP no matter how much they revere him (see here and here). It’s an opinion shared by a number of pundits across the blogosphere. Here is another example of exactly what I mean:

After trying (and failing) to disembowel Social Security, Reagan did an dramatic about-face and bailed out the program to the tune of $165 billion and made Social Security taxes more progressive, forcing upper-income Americans to shoulder more of the burden than their poor counterparts.
Reagan raised taxes 11 times! He passed the largest tax increase since World War II and introduced hefty new corporate taxes.

While conservatives like Sarah Palin tout Reagan’s record for standing up to the Soviet Union, they ignore that Reagan was attacked by far-right conservatives for being too conciliatory to the Communist bloc. When Reagan engaged in direct talks with Gorbachev and the Soviets, conservative leader Paul Wyerich wrote in The Washington Post, “Reagan is a weakened president, weakened in spirit as well as clout.”

Go here to read the rest. It’s definitely worth the read.

Related articles

• Ronald Reagan officially too liberal for modern GOP (dailykos.com)
• Rubio and Reagan (outsidethebeltway.com)
• GOP Claims “Reagan Conservatism” but Reagan Would Disagree (thehalshow.wordpress.com)

My Support For Herman Cain is Dropping Faster Than…

There are so many analogies I could use, but my friend Rev. Ken reads these and I don’t want to get called to the Rector’s office on Sunday.

When Herman Cain announced he was running for president, I smiled.   I’ve listened to his radio show on WSB in Atlanta often enough, and I was happy to find out we’d have a candidate in the race who wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.  Plus, I wanted to see how having a Black candidate in the race–but coming from the Right–would affect all the “you just hate him because he’s Black” rhetoric.  Here we had a man who had actually run a business running for POTUS!!

Alas, my joy is fleeting.

Cain is on some type of anti-Muslim kick.  Yes, it is true that the folks trying to do us harm are Muslim fanatics.  But it seems that Cain has taken things to a different level.  Previously, he stated (and clarified during the first Republican candidate debate) that he would basically test any Muslim who wanted to be in his administration to make sure they were loyal.  That was dumb enough.  But now, he’s backing the notion of communities banning mosques.  Why?  Because Sharia Law is going to take over the US!

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Sunday that communities have a right to ban Islamic mosques.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO said protests and legal challenges to a planned mosque in Tennessee city are an example of local residents pushing back.

Cain said his view doesn’t amount to religious discrimination because he says Muslims are trying to inject Shariah law into the U.S.

So, Cain’s reasoning is that the Muslim’s are using the mosques as cover, and that any member of the mosque could be shadow agent for the Sharia movement. Let’s all run in fear.

I don’t find myself agreeing with Eugene Robinson all that often, but he hit it on the head:

Let’s return to the real world for a moment and see how bogus this argument is. Presumably, Cain would include Roman Catholicism among the “traditional religions” that deserve constitutional protection. It happens that our legal system recognizes divorce, but the Catholic Church does not. This, by Cain’s logic, must constitute an attempt to impose “Vatican law” on an unsuspecting nation.

Similarly, Jewish congregations that observe kosher dietary laws must be part of a sinister plot to deprive America of its God-given bacon.

If Mr. Cain keeps this up, the word in front of “candidate Herman Cain” won’t be “longshot.” It will be “fringe.”

Related articles

• Herman Cain: Communities have right to ban mosques (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Herman Cain continues to rail against Islam, endorses mosque ban (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• Herman Cain: We Should Be Able to Ban Mosques (newser.com)