I had intended all along to go to today’s Cain luncheon at the National Press Club, and I had bought a ticket from a friend. It turned out to be a lucky break, because it meant I would be treated to a nice Georgia meal (fried chicken, hush puppies, and a half peach, smothered in a really delicious and unhealthy-looking sauce) and some 9-9-9 cupcakes as I sat in to see how the man of the moment would address the major problems his campaign is facing.
The big deal was the sexual harassment allegations, obviously. But first, I want to go back to the question he was asked on abortion. It was dispiriting to see Cain continue his pathetic dissembling on that issue. It’s one thing for him to claim he was “taken out of context.” It’s quite another when you look at what he actually said, because it proves there is no way he was “taken out of context.”
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In that Piers Morgan interview where he stumbled, Cain appeared to say either that he would make an exception for his own family, or that government should stay out of the abortion issue altogether, or both. It’s very difficult to interpret his comments as some kind of misunderstanding. Had he admitted to being fuzzy-headed in that interview, it would be a more credible excuse than his continued denial that he actually said what he actually said.
So, with that out of the way, I thought Cain handled the sexual harassment issue as well as anyone could have possibly hoped. He came in up-front with a joke about the whole thing – he said that he had already been learning what it’s like to be a top tier candidate, but that today’s big news story was really showing him what it’s like. Having made light of the story in this way, he went on to talk about his candidacy and his tax plan. In the Q&A, the first question (obviously) was on the sexual harassment allegations in Politico. He took it head on: I didn’t sexually harass anyone, he said, but I was indeed accused and recused myself from the investigation that followed.
There could still be a hitch with the plausibility of Cain not knowing anything about the settlements. There’s also this apparent contradiction found by Jonathan Martin — although it’s not exactly clear whether that hurts Cain. And his approach to the allegations could still completely backfire if new evidence emerges of creepy (I guess that’s the word, since we don’t know much about the allegations themselves at this point) behavior in those or other cases. But provided we’ve already seen the meat of this story, Cain has limited the damage. At the very least, he’s limited it for now.
As for the song Cain broke into at the end – okay, kind of strange. On the surface, given the song’s theme of repentance, perhaps it’s appropriate to the occasion. But I’m reminded of the story of a criminal defense attorney. It was Friday afternoon in the courtroom, and some extremely damaging evidence had just been presented against his client. So he unzipped his fly, pulled his shirt-tail through it, then got up and gave a deliberately incoherent cross examination that involved lots of shouting and gesticulation. His rationale was that the jury would think about his antics instead of the evidence.
I have no idea whether this worked, or even whether the story is true – but you see what I’m getting at.
