Cain Hoopla: No Sense of Perspective

Tony Silva

The media are moving on to matters of style rather than substance in the Herman Cain "sexual harassment" scandal.  It's wise for them to do so at this point, given the overall lack of substance to the charges and given the obvious sourcing behind the story.

From the Democrat controlled media to Mitt Romney's apologists on FoxNews, the almost universal analysis now is that Cain did not handle the story well, meaning he did not have all of the facts in order and a carefully plotted damage control plan in place before talking to the media.  To the extent that we're talking about a typical political campaign in which experienced under-the-radar operators take out an opponent with questionably obtained dirt, they're correct.   Unfortunately, Romney's unofficial chef strategist, Karl Rove misses the point with his constant criticism of a candidacy like Herman Cain's.  The establishment and the "old way of doing politics" is turned on its head when a novice fumbles an easy catch like this one.  They're unprepared for just how much sympathy someone like Cain gets when he confronts the traditionally slung mud.

The media has no sense of perspective in this story.  When Bill Clinton was credibly accused of rape, or of real sexual harassment or even of repeated cigaramour with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, his apologists went after the women involved, ruining the lives of almost all of them.  That's how the game is played.  For the legacy media, the Clinton saga was one of a strongly pro-woman politician who had some minor moral flaws; it was all about his personal life, which was irrelevant to his fitness for public service.  Now, they see Cain's waffling as evidence of something more serious than moral bankruptcy.  Nobody on either side believes Herman Cain is capable of the willful misogynistic treatment of women that defined Clinton.  Few people really believe Cain did anything that rises to the level of sexual harassment at all, much less the nearly criminal behavior toward women that is the Clinton contribution to our understanding of this issue.  So what is Cain actually guilty of?  In the media and establishment mindset, his crime is naivete.

From the media's perspective, Cain is predictable in the only high crime and misdemeanor for which political accountability is necessary: political innocence.  It is this quality of the Cain character that has propelled him to front runner status.  We can be fairly certain that his lack of nuance and apparent inability to obfuscate will make anything he says, no matter how clumsy, on issues like this a genuine reflection of the man.   With Cain, we don't need to know what the meaning of the word, "is" is.  If he said he did not sexually harass anyone, he clearly believes that.  It is up to the electorate to consider the available facts.  If Clinton is the standard of permissible conduct, then the only thing left for the media and the Karl Rove wing of the GOP to consider is this lack of guile that is at the core of Herman Cain's gaffery.

We have learned two important lessons in this story:

1. If you're a liberal Democrat, no amount of abusive conduct toward women will harm you politically -- you get a pass
2. If you're a non-establishment conservative Republican, it is only the seriousness of the charges that matters -- as Clarence Thomas learned -- and you get a rope.