29 November 2011

CAIN-ing



  • Lynching:  To punish (a person) without legal process or authority, especially by hanging, for a perceived offense or as an act of bigotry.
  • Caining: To punish (a Black Conservative Republican) without legal process or authority, especially by sexual accusation, for a perceived offense (of threatening the “minority” base of Progressive Liberal Democrats) or as an act of bigotry (for engaging in “critical thought”).         
                                            ~Frantz Emmanuel Kebreau

Once again the Republican race for the Presidential nomination has been embroiled by a sex scandal attributed to Georgia businessman Herman Cain.

The prior barrage involved fifteen year old allegations of sexual harassment while Cain was the head of the National Restaurant Association.  After the anonymous allegations proffered by an attorney against a client’s wishes did not succeed in sinking Cain, the ante was upped.

Publicity hungry celebrity attorney Gloria Allred trotted out Sharon Bialek to a press conference to offer an uncorroborated story from the late 1990s which sounded more like sexual assault. But Bialek supposedly only vaguely told two people, including her pediatrician “boyfriend” (who had recommended soliciting Cain’s help).

This cock and bull show did not result in Cain dropping out of the Presidential race.  In fact, it prompted record fundraising.  So a week later, Attorney Allred brought out the “boyfriend”, who could not have knowing anything contemporaneously if we believed alleged victim Bialek.  At that point, the feeding frenzy ended but the mud still sullied Cain.

Even though Cain had an uptick in fundraising, he has precipitously plummeted in the polls. Granted, Cain’s stumbling on an answer about Libya to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel along with two debates centering on Cain’s bĂȘte noire of foreign policy did not help.

Now, after the Thanksgiving news lull, there is yet another Cain accuser. Instead of alleging sexual harassment, Ginger White claims that she has carried on a fifteen year affair with the former pizza magnet. White claims that the relationship was curtailed eight months ago, just as Cain was announcing his run for the Presidency.

Democrats gleefully charge marital infidelity and hypocrisy, forgetting the mantra in defending B.J. Clinton in 1998 that consensual sex is a personal matter.  Of course, Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (1971) commands: “Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. ‘You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.’”

There is a drumbeat from the Lamestream Media for Cain to withdraw from the race.  But in 2007, former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) carried on an affair (and impregnated) his Presidential campaign’s videographer Rielle Hunter who travelled on the press plane as his wife died of cancer, yet it was only the National Enquirer which reported the dalliance.

While it would be more profitable to consider the real issues of the GOP race, rather than wading through the snippets of information surrounding White’s allegation, we must consider the credibility of the accuser and the plausibility of the claims.

Ginger White is a down on her luck single mother who unsuccessfully sued a former employer for sexual harassment.  It’s a similar pattern of women making multiple sexual harassment claims–not for Cain but for the accusers like Bialek and Karen Karshaar.

Another question that should be considered is what sort of relationship White claims to have with Cain as he was a stage 4 Prostate Cancer patient.  Frankly, it is not titillating to know the details. But not that the facts matter when mud slinging.

It would be surprising if Herman Cain, a Baptist Minister who has been married to his wife for 41 years, was a cad and did not expect the details to come out as he as scrutinized by the press.  If one were to believe all of the allegations against Cain, he is a political “Dr. Jeckell and Mr. Hyde”.

Political partisans rejoiced at jabbing the black conservative candidate as “Sugar Cain”.  Perhaps it goes along with the crude monicker of “Tea Baggers”, but this should not be surprising for what Ann Coulter labeled the “Demonic”.  But this mudslinging seems to have worked among casual political observers who can remember every salacious detail of the accusation and tut tut, yet they do not want to listen to facts which actually expose slanders. It reminds me of former Reagan Administration Labor Secretary Raymond Donivan, after being totally acquitted of larceny and fraud charges who quipped “Which office do I go to get my reputation back?”

During the three years of President Obama’s term, the economy is in the doldrums and little hope of significant improvement by election time.  The Democrats had complete control of the House and the Senate and Obama should have been able to pass anything he wanted.  Instead, the legislative achievement of Obamacare is still manifestly unpopular and may be unconstitutional.  Despite voicing support for the Occupy Movement, even left wingers are upset with Obama.  So Obama will be unable to run for re-election with the warm fuzzy “Hope and Change” mantra.  Obama 2012 is trying to raise $1 Billion for the campaign and has the bully pulpit, a compliant Lamestream Media which mostly seems to sympathize with Obama.  Expect the re-election campaign will be focused on negatively portraying the Republicans, exploiting every fissure and foible.  Expect to see more of this special scrutiny on the GOP for the next year.

There is a palpable perception in right wing media circles that Cain may be effectively diminished by this charge (true or not), but that it is a media hatchet job.  The 2000 Presidential Election was nearly thrown to Vice President Al Gore after a last minute Opposition Research leak that then Gov. George W. Bush (R-TX) had a DUI charge in 1976.

While Herman Cain’s star had already started to fade in the GOP Primary constellation, as Tea Party types gravitated towards Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) as the “non-Romney” candidate, the persistence of the media’s Caining is taking Borking to a new level in the political process. And I weep for the future.

H/T A.F Branco ConservativeDailynews

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