Off Topic Tuesday: Herman Cain (and Stuff)

The Mad Monarchist looks at the sexual harassment claims against Cain during his 2012 presidential campaign.

From The Mad Monarchist (8 November 2011)

Is Herman Cain in trouble? Someone explain it to me. We now have a fourth woman saying she was sexually harassed by Herman Cain (this time publicly) which, they’re starting to pile up, seems like trouble to me. However, this woman, the only one (so far) to come out publicly, seems to have *zero* credibility, so I’m not sure if he’s really in that much trouble or not. Before I knew anything at all about this woman, she had no credibility with me because Gloria Allred is her lawyer -and there is no more sure sign of being a guilty, money-hungry media whore than having Gloria Allred as your attorney. In addition to the Allred factor, there are a few other things that smell rotten in the state of Denmark. This woman did not just accuse Cain of sexual harassment, what she described was really a sexual assault. Sounds serious. The problem is, she was grinning from ear to ear the whole time she was telling the story. We also find out later that this happened 15 years ago and she only decides to “go public” now (how convenient) and that she’s been unemployed for the last thirteen years. Smells like a bottle-blonde loser looking to cash-in to me.

Whether Herman Cain is guilty of sexual harassment or not I don’t know (and neither does anyone else but him and the women involved). What I do know is that I have a real problem with men being accused of sexual harassment. Why is that you ask? Because I’ve seen it my whole life; attractive guy hits on a woman and it’s flirting. Unattractive guy hits on a woman and it’s “sexual harassment”. Too often it is the sort of accusation that can never be really proven but is used by disgruntled employees to get an easy cash settlement out of their boss who doesn’t want to go to court and be labeled a pervert for the rest of his life. What little I’ve heard about the actual accusations against Cain also don’t make me inclined to think this case was genuine. If calling someone “sugar” or “honey” is sexual harassment then I have sexually harassed a lot of women and I have been sexually harassed by a lot of women. Heck, I have a first cousin who has been called ‘Sugs’ (pronounced “Shugs”) for her entire life -short for ‘Sugar’- because our Grandpa couldn’t pronounce her real name! There was nothing “sexual” about that, my Grandpa gave almost everyone a nickname; some because he had trouble with their real names and others because, he was an old man, he had a lot of grandkids, nieces and nephews (some of whom had the same name) and it was easier for him to remember.

Come to think of it, my Grandpa and his nicknames could probably get him into a lot of trouble if he were alive today. Ones like, “Captain Jack” or “China Doll” or any of the ones in Spanish -probably racist today. “Tweets” would probably get him sued by Twitter for copyright infringement or something. Gentlemen of a certain age could get in a lot of trouble these days just by trying to be nice. My Grandpa was the most honest, upright, Christian man you could ever find but he turned into a hopeless liar whenever he met an ugly woman. Because, it did not matter how ugly a woman was, he told her she was beautiful. He told every woman she was beautiful just because that’s the way he was raised. You complimented people and said something nice whether you really believed it or not. Boy, would he be in trouble today. So, all of that may skew my view of the Herman Cain scandal. If any of my grandparents would have heard of such a thing, good old fashioned souls that they were (are in one case) they would have said, I’m sure, that incidents like that are just another reason why women shouldn’t be in the workplace at all. Even my late grandmother who had to work never liked the idea of women in the workplace who didn’t have to be. Too much temptation and occasion for sin was what she said -and it never went farther than that.

Of course, the days of that sort of thinking are long gone. Women have won the right to have a job, go to work in a miniskirt and skin-tight blouse with no underwear and then sue any guy who stares at her for sexual harassment. We also have a media bias in this country that is so obvious at this point it is practically funny. Bill Clinton had allegations of sexual harassment, groping and even rape under his belt (so to speak) and was elected President. Then, once in power, he was caught turning the Oval Office into the “Oral Office” and still served two terms and left with a higher popularity rating than when he went in. Anonymous sources claim Herman Cain sexually harassed them more than a decade ago and it is all you hear about on the news for weeks. You might as well laugh about it.

As regular readers will know, I’ve never understood what all the fuss was about Herman Cain to begin with. I wasn’t sure he was even serious about running for President -and I’m still not. He may be a little shocked that he did so well all of a sudden and is afraid to back out and admit it was all a publicity stunt for his book. I did not think he had the experience necessary and I still don’t as his reaction to this scandal shows. He may be tops for fixing the economy but what about issues of law and order, foreign policy and national defense? I also tend to doubt that anyone will be able to “fix” the economy because every time I see the Wall Street protestors or any Democrats saying we need to ‘spend our way out of debt’ I think, “we” STILL just don’t get it. And that is depressing. I am not for Herman Cain but I don’t like to see anyone treated unfairly and I don’t like the way Romney is being rammed down the throats of the GOP voters as the designated candidate. The Democrats just don’t get it and then I look at guys like Romney and Perry and Newt and I think the Republicans don’t get it either. It’s more of the same and I’m afraid we’re going to have hit rock bottom -hard- I mean so hard that the Great Depression looks like the “good old days” before this thick-headed population finally gets the message that “stuff” isn’t free and you can’t get something for nothing.