Over the next few weeks, we’re going to hear a lot about Herman Cain’s history of inappropriate and awkward sexual advances, and none of it is going to be pleasant. I suggest that, as much as possible, we ignore it. I know, however, that I will not be able to, not with Season 5 of “Mad Men” months away.
I have only one question: does this have real mythological staying power? Will Luke Nocera and Meghan Halperin some day agree that all the unpleasantness of 2036 politics dates back to ACORN’s and Rahm Emmanuel’s dastardly attempts to destroy Herman Cain?
I think it may have more staying power than people think because Cain’s polls numbers have not been affected much yet, so we could have as much as a few months of blaming the lamestream media for this story, etc. before Cain — who never had a chance anyway — completely implodes. That’s plenty of time to cook up myths about how Journolist was responsible for the whole thing.
MikeJ
I wish that it would stop.
Sly
My money is on “blurring the definition of sexual harassment to the point of it being entirely made up by ugly bitches who can’t get a man” as the wurlitzer’s strategy going forward.
DougJ
@Sly:
Hasn’t that been done before? There was a whole MIchael Crichton book/movie about that.
Jenny
That’s because this is all a liberal media hit job.
The liberals are trying to Bork him because he’s black.
DougJ
@Jenny:
Yeah, I think that may be the storyline here.
shoutingattherain
A good place to start would be for you Front Page Types to stop talking about it in EVERY FRICKIN’ POST.
Thanx in advance…
hhex65
“Bieber” might be a first name in 2036, kinda like “Dylan”.
DougJ
@hhex65:
As long as Buble isn’t, it’s all good.
Linda Featheringill
I’m guessing that if these ladies were offended by Herman’s advances, they turned him down. Yet he went on to proposition and offend other women. Did he run across women who were amenable to his suggestions, so that he really did not know who would or would not without testing them? Or is he a slow learner, sticking to the same failed technique and hoping that it would work eventually?
MikeJ
@hhex65: If you can find a Bieber Thomas born a quarter century before the pop star I might agree with you.
DougJ
@Linda Featheringill:
Churchillian resolve.
Redshift
Cain seems to be successfully following something close to the path I thought Palin would take — pretend to run for president, quit while blaming it on (I thought) the Republican establishment, and be set up to fleece the rubes for another few years.
Cain goes it one better and gets to be a major conservative victim, because to wingnuttia, sexual harassment is always a trumped-up attack on a man. He’s probably going to be milking this on Fox for the rest of our lives.
Villago Delenda Est
No, this is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.
It will all be forgotten. It’s all very topical, very noisy now, but in three months…poof. It’s a trivia question.
Mike in NC
It takes a tough man to make a tender pizza.
Jenny
2036 is 25 years away, so I imagine the PUMAs and Firebaggers will still be bitching about how the black guy stole the nomination from Hillary.
Paddy
@MikeJ: Dammit, beat me to it.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Here’s what will happen:
1. Enough people will accuse the press of liberal bias.
2. The press will drop this story like it is covered in vaginal warts.
3. Cain stays in the race.
4. We make more popcorn.
@Sly: $50 says some RightWank will bring up that case where a man was falsely accused and convicted of rape within the next week.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jenny:
I didn’t know Mark Penn was a black guy…
RossInDetroit
@Linda Featheringill:
I was wondering the same thing. He couldn’t have struck out EVERY time. If he was hitting on enough women to offend at least three enough that they blew the whistle I’m betting that he found a few who were charmed or flattered. Maybe the guy had affairs. Considering the evidence we have I’d regard that as highly likely.
techno
I going with “I was just refining my technique.” It must be embarrassing as hell to think you are being smooth and sexy only to discover the woman is not only NOT going to sleep with you, but has filed a complaint. And that she gets a year’s severance pay. This must be especially confusing if whatever happened worked in previous attempts.
LosGatosCA
Herman is the black Sarah Robert Palin Bork now.
By becoming an official media martyr he’s now immunized against any objective criticism of any kind in the minds of the wingnuttia.
It’s all upside. I hope he’s able to stay in long enough to reap a primary victory from the backlash against the liberal media.
“Voting for Cain is like sticking a finger in Jane Fonda’s eye!”
And bonus points if he finally withdraws from the race with a ‘The liberal media won’t have Herman Cain to kick around anymore”
jl
Well, OK. Sure. It’s not my blog. I guess it depends how many smart ass wisecracks the front posters and milk out of it.
But, I for one, will not read anything that looks like a deep thoughtful seriously probing (ha ha, get it? ‘probing’) exquisitely nuanced analysis of the significance of it all and what it says about Cain. (Edit: won’t read it here, or elsewhere.)
Unless it looks like it might make for high camp.
Everyone of these GOPper have pulled what I consider to be a jerk stunt (for most of them, dozens) that render them unfit or any public responsibility at all. And that is apart from most of their horrible policy views.
So, sure it would be sad if Cain is a serial harasser, who can do it crudely enough to have produced tens of thousands of dollars in judgments. But, is anyone that surprized that something like this would come out about any of these people?
LosGatosCA
It’s not like he Abu Ghraibed any of these women. And that was just college hazing without the worthless liberal arts education anyway.
General Stuck
Man, this shit is getting weird. So we have a relatively unknown black tea party POTUS GOP frontrunner rocked by scandal via lecherous behavior early in the campaign. Supported by the same clowns we saw sporting Obama witchdoctor protest signs. And his poll numbers don’t budge. It’s like some kind of weird subspace flux of an alternate reverse reality, whipsawing us back to 1992 and the clenis kiss and tells. Cain needs his own Whitewater and maybe some rumors of being a drug kingpin and running a murder inc for hire business. And who among his staff will offer to kill themselves in a DC park, fueling speculation of getting whacked by Cain, or his wife?
Meanwhile, the country is going belly up whilst the wingnuts filibuster the existence of President Obama. It’s like our own American made Doomsday Device where the snark becomes self aware, turning our worst fears into a permanent Meet the Press.
hhex65
@MikeJ: I’m only finding a “Bebert” Thomas so your point stands– “Groban” Nocera it is, then.
jl
Edit to previous comment, which I cannot edit now, because FYWP. In addition to thousands in judgments, he also apparently produced victims who can stay pissed, disturbed about what happened, and eager to speak out, for years afterward.
Now there is, what, three or four? As the victim count increases, the likelihood that the accused is being set up, or is a victim of gold diggers, or nutsnsluts, or whatever, plummets to nearly zero, IMHO.
Jenny
I actually love how Politico is offended over being dumped on.
They’re dying to scream: “STOP YELLING AT US, WE’RE ON YOUR SIDE (wingers)”, but they can’t because they gotta keep up the charade for the low info voters and for the low IQ Villagers.
Splitting Image
The difference between Bork and Cain is that Bork was part of the crew of insiders who supported his nomination. He was working with Rehnquist on Goldwater’s campaign all the way back in 1964.
Cain has been on the same side as the current GOPers since the ’90s, but he hasn’t been an insider. That makes all the difference.
I suppose it’s possible that whatever is left of the GOP in 2036 will still be defending him, but it’s more likely that they’ll forget which party he ran for and use him as an example of Democrats coming after your children.
Like Mark Foley (D-Florida as per Fox), Mark Sanford (D-S. Carolina as per ditto) and Larry Craig (D-Idaho as per a local TV station).
MikeJ
If people keep talking about Clarence Thomas when can we get Youth Against Fascism on the front page?
RossInDetroit
@General Stuck:
I know. We’re not in Kansas any more. For that matter, neither is Kansas.
amk
Sooo, when is that tundra twit jumping back right into the race ?
MikeJ
@amk: Can’t be in the race because of filing deadlines, but she can try to swing the convention.
arguingwithsignposts
You can troll better, DougJ
ETA: Nice Squeeze title
Jenny
He’s like Stossel. They whine and whine about litigiousness and frivolousness lawsuits and how people should suck it up, and then they scrape their elbow and turn into welfare queens.
RossInDetroit
@MikeJ:
That would be work, and therefore it won’t happen. The low hanging fruit has been picked and she’s kicked back with a cup of cocoa watching others do the hard labor.
jl
On other hand, the probable upcoming GOP free style, foreign objects permitted, death cage match extravaganza must be covered in extreme. Watching a major US political party self destruct in ways both hilarious and disgusting is an historical event.
Like a major comet, though less elegant.
Maybe, at the top of the front page, BJ should post a code for the specifics of the scandals and accusations we do not want to waste time on.
DougJ is mathematician, so he can develop an encoding that will cover pretty damn much anything of any complexity.
So,
CH is Cain harassment scandal,
CM is the Cain illegal campaign contribution scandal
CS is the tobacco pandering scandal while running restaurant association
Like isotopes, the number of accusers and Cain contradicions could be added as subscripts and superscipts. So, for example as of toady, it would be CH _ 3 ^ 100.
MDOO will be the notorious Mitt dog transport affair.
We will need a separate system for the extremely complex system, perhaps space filling lattice thingy, that is the Santorum lobbying rackets.
So, reports would go like ‘In the debate, Cain accused Perry of manufacturing the reports of a move from CH _ 3 ^ 100 to CH _ 3 ^ 110, and responded to Romney that MDOO was worse because dog lives, which begin at conception, were involved.’
Edit: dang I did not know you could format subscripts and superscripts in this here comment thing. Don’t have time to figure out how it works, and looks like did not mess up the following comments. So I’ll leave it be.
jl
@Jenny: Politico will learn from this. Sometimes you should just let the phone ring.
reflectionephemeral
@Mike in NC:
That is a pretty damned awesome and obscure allusion. Well done.
EDITED: It now occurs to me that you were thinking of the original ad, rather than the mistranslation in Singapore: “It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant.” Well, that line should be famous too.
As to the post title, surely you’re aware of this, but Elvis sings backup on that song, and I think may have produced it.
I used a line from “Blame It On Cain” as a title this morning on a post about income inequality, for not all that much reason other than that it was in my head.
RossInDetroit
@jl:
Tomasky has created a complex board game to keep track of Cain’s status and the effects of the scandal. It’s pretty funny.
JWL
“..does this have real mythological staying power”?
It depends. If it transpires that a coke can, coated with pubic hairs, is part of The Cain Saga, the answer will be “yes”.
Jenny
@MikeJ:
I always thought she was a swinger.
jl
@RossInDetroit: Uh, thanks, I guess.
Has he trademarked the idea yet? You could put out a whole line of those for each of the candidates.
We need a fantasy league for the GOP primary is what I think.
SIA
@General Stuck: I’m saving this one.
MikeJ
@jl: Any encoding system for republican scandals that is correct can’t be complete.
Mark S.
@MikeJ:
When was the last time a nomination was decided during the convention? 1968?
@Jenny:
Sarah had sex with Glen Rice?
jl
@MikeJ: Yeah, that crossed my mind. DougJ will read about the ‘lost letter’ and make some humongous tables. He is a math guy and can do that stuff. BJ will figure it out. Great discoveries are made that way, you know?
Edit: people will say ‘too humongous”. Counterexample: Tunch. Nothing will stop BJ!
Suffern ACE
It’s going to be difficult to ignore since the poltical blog I read and comment on every day delivers a post on the topic every 20 minutes like a Dominos boy afraid of having his pay docked.
I actually hope he survives and I hope the stories are pleasant. Being an adult in this recession, I sold my pearls a few years back and just don’t go much for the clutching any longer.
Linda Featheringill
@DougJ: #11
I like that. I may use it sometime. Perhaps in my own defense. :-)
RossInDetroit
@jl:
Only if it’s possible for every team to have a losing record. I’d go for that.
Spaghetti Lee
I’m browsing the ol’ Wikipedia trying to find examples of Republicans accused of similar things, from approximately 25 years ago. Lessee, we got Bob Packwood, Ernest Konnyu, and Buz Lukens. So, I’m guessing people won’t remember or care about this in 25 years, except politics junkies, but times have changed: the wingnut grievance industry is bigger than it’s ever been.
Spaghetti Lee
@jl:
You could put out a whole line of those for each of the candidates.
Not sure if that would work. Romney would insist on playing with every game piece at once, Rick Perry would drunkenly try to eat the game pieces, and Santorum would cover them with, well, you know.
jl
@RossInDetroit: How about a BJ lowball GOP fantasy league? Convince the front posters to get that going, and the blog will really pay for itself.
Spaghetti: the candidates would be allowed to buy the games? Aren’t there public safety laws against that kind of thing?
handsmile
Actuarially, there is a reasonably good chance that I will be alive to witness the 2036 presidential election.
But reflecting upon the accelerating implosion of American representative democracy, I fear that election will most resemble what now passes for the franchise in authoritarian regimes.
And with that sanguine vision, I bid you good night, fellow BJ night-hawks. Don’t forget to tip the waitresses.
piratedan
well I’m tempted to believe that the truth will be discovered thru the steadfast machinations of the fourth estate, who chase down a scandal much more effectively than they do at accurately portraying and presenting facts in this day and age. Because I’m sure that it’s their collective conscious that hates to be untrue.
Chuck Butcher
I really hope this stuff doesn’t stick to Cain and that Perry can figure out how to do this candidate thing. Consider the prospect of those two within some sort of reach and working on Mittens. The chances of Mitt emerging from that only mildly damaged with either the Right or the Waffling Middle are remote.
Mr Multple-choice can’t just give up the Right but competing with Cain/Perry will force him into ludicrous positions in regard to the “middle.” He would have been the perfect candidate for the middle, unprincipled bland white plutocrat – a man with none of those inconvenient edges provided by actually believing in something … other than money.
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.:
Goodness, I had already forgotten that news story and it was only two months ago.
On a related note, I watched an interview with Florence Henderson discussing her new memoir, in which it is revealed that she got the crabs from a one night stand with John Lindsay in the early 1970s. If only he were still alive today so that he could be on TV to discuss how that incident tarnishes his legacy.
Steve
The smarter Republicans know that Cain is never going to be the guy, so they are all excited about the possibility of being able to claim that Democrats somehow sank their awesome black candidate because they all just hate black conservatives (or, as Ann Coulter would put it, conservative blacks).
I don’t think this will make any difference to anything, mind you. But they really do believe that if they keep saying Dems are the real racists, someone other than themselves will listen.
Mark S.
Newtmentum? Gingrich is now in third.
middlewest
And in news that is actually interesting: 133 members of the House signed an amici brief declaring DOMA unconstitutional.
Ailuridae
@middlewest:
I’m kind of disappointed that only 133 members of the house signed the brief.
burnspbesq
@reflectionephemeral:
Not obscure if you lived in New York in the 1970s. Ol’ Frank was all over the teevee.
Moonbatting Average
@General Stuck:
Poetry. It’s like Dr. Strangelove meets Skynet Meets the Press.
We can haz “the snark becomes self-aware” tag?
burnspbesq
OT: Galaxy win, 2-1 on the night, 3-1 on aggregate. Definitely had its scary moments, but David Beckham of 2004 showed up and made all the difference.
burnspbesq
“Open the pod bay doors, Snark.”
“I’m sorry, Doug, but you’re a threat to my mission, so I’m going to off you.”
Yutsano
@middlewest: Don’t tell me, let me guess: no elephants.
Amir Khalid
@Mark S.:
14% and third place is an impressive performance for a candidate whose campaign organization imploded, like, six months ago and has not recovered since. So right now, Spineless Romney and Silly Cain are contending for the lead while Stupid Perry is falling off the pace. But given the wild swings in individuals candidates’ numbers, at least when it comes to frontrunners, these numbers only reflect that Republican voters are wildly irrational and fickle this cycle. No one has any real idea how those first primaries/caucuses will go, and how those results will shape the primary season.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Popcorn. Get it while it’s fresh!
Villago Delenda Est
@Mark S.:
Ah, the “Anyone But the Mormon!” beast has found a new host to drive into the ground over the next four weeks or so…
Moonbatting Average
@burnspbesq: The Snarknet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line November 3rd, 2011. Human decisions are removed from sarcastic remarks. Snarknet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, November 4th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug…
Bill E Pilgrim
Herman Cain’s supporters and Rick Santorum’s supporters and anyone who works for FOX News will blame anything short of their not becoming the next President on “the liberal media”. They would do this with or without the past sordid behavior scandals and will see conspiracies with or without this sort of thing. The attack on ACORN wasn’t a response to any right winger being exposed as a fraud, it was a response to an African American Democrat becoming President.
So I guess my response is yes, they will invent conspiracy theories about all sorts of things they don’t like, but those range from seeing someone implode from scandal to just not getting the electoral results they wanted.
Jenny
This is pretty funny.
The Moonie Times are saying Cain-Gate is a RAHM! hit job.
Looks like there are others who suffer from paranoid RAHM! disorder syndrome.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/11/03/cainaquiddick_where_source_based_journalism_goes_to_die.html
Bill E Pilgrim
@RossInDetroit: I like the board game graphic. Snakes on a Cain.
Jenny
Earlier today, some people were speculating that Obama is secretly Jewish, and not secretly Muslim because he hates the gays, and the Palestinians, and the public option.
Don’t worry, he’s gone back to being a secret Moooslim. He was caught embracing the prime minister of Turkey at the G-20, and Turkey is Israel’s new enemy, so naturally, people are back to calling him an anti-Semite.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/superspecial_status033265.php
Poor Obama, I’ve never seen one person subjected with so many neurotic daddy issue projections and pony requests.
Amir Khalid
@Jenny:
Remember, the consistent thing in all this is that Barack Hussein Obama is not one of Us. He’s one of THEM. Whichever group happens to be THEM today.
JGabriel
Linda Featheringill:
Well, let’s see: he’s rich, he’s personable or charismatic enough to be leading in the presidential primary right now, and he appears to have either enjoyed propositioning women whom he had control over at work or he didn’t discriminate among them.
My guess is, yeah, it probably worked for him often enough to make it a bad habit.
.
Snarkworth
We can haz “the snark becomes self-aware” tag?
/pinches self/
WereBear
Congratulations, Herman Cain; you lived in enough of a post-racial reality that your plutocratic, entitled behavior, de rigueur for a certain kind of rich man, was not regarded as something to be fixed with violence; only with money.
Because it’s not about the sex; it’s about the money. As in, he wasn’t fired; the women were paid off. He acts this way because it’s not that he’s so irresistible; it’s that he has money. For some rich people, it’s only a question of price; for glittery objects or actual human beings.
He didn’t think it was a big deal then, and it’s apparently very hard to get him to realize it’s a big deal now.
gocart mozart
Maybe the women are German and were saying “Nein! Nein! Nein!” in response to his advances and he reasonably interpreted it as enthusiastic approval. It could have all been just a simple misunderstanding. See, there is a perfectly rational explanation for all of this.
Ben Cisco
Eh, this will get the Ferengi media all hot and bothered (?!), but Cain won’t care. Here’s why:
__
Svensker
@handsmile:
I read that as “don’t forget to tie up the waitresses.”
Show’s you what reading this blog does to the mind.
El Cid
@General Stuck: Back when the Birchers screamed their heads off in the 1950s, their crazy utterances weren’t taken as the lead discussion subjects on all the TV boxes. Not too far off, mind you, given that most of the “anti-Communist” lunacy was taken seriously — ‘are you a Komnist, MLK?’. But not so much ‘is fluoride a Komnist conspirsee,’ which today gets passed as law in Florida counties, and whether or not Eisenhower was a Komnist plant.
Laura Clawson
Kate Nocera writes for Politico, FYI.
jacksmith
@AJEnglish: @UN: #Palestine: The #Palestinians need to take everything they can get from their @UN bid. They are entitled to full participation in all @UN organizations and memberships.
The actions of the US and Israel are unconscionable. And precisely the type of nation state human rights abuses the #UN deplores.
Attempting to blackmail the World body by cutting funding is outrageous and despicable. And the #UN must not let that stand.
Participation in the United Nations is both a privilege and a high responsibility. Members must do their duty regardless of cost. And help this tiny repressed and brutalized nation (Palestine) join the world community in peace and plenty.
RT @AJEnglish: Palestinians will push for full UN seat only http://aje.me/ssN669
HalfEmpty
@jl: OMG. Funniest thing I’ve read in days.