All the speculation about non-denial denials were tied to this point — and frankly, the inside-the-Beltway GOP media should have recognized the dynamic. Instead, many of them went with the innuendo that, because the Cain campaign was not giving polished denials, Cain himself was likely hiding something.
In fact, this attitude continued into this morning, with “conservatives” like Jen Rubin quipping that AEI was somehow protecting Cain (he was there to talk about tax policy, but in the US today, those things don’t matter: Jen wanted him asked about sex sex sex!), and that he needed to be asked the tough questions then and there, even as his campaign had already announced he’d be doing FOX and other venues, where he’d answer questions related to these thinly sourced allegations.
So now it comes down whether or not you believe Cain or anonymous sources sourced anonymously, one of which anonymously refers to gestures “not overtly sexual” as a source of the sexual harassment anonymously being alleged.
****
update: Cain says, if the National Restaurant Association settled, I hope it wasn’t for much. Because the claims were baseless. Investigation proved as much.
But he never settled, and he never paid anyone anything.
…all of which is ushering in the whole “is the cover-up worse than the crime” phase of the story’s life cycle from the predictable players.
Even the frightfully stupid establishment media understands that their grip on power is loosening. Ooo, Halloween! Scary! Who knows what new bogeymen lurk around the corner?
He raped me! With a wink!
Was there a curly hair on a soda can? Cuz if so, that would send me over the edge. Dirty Man
I believe Mr. Cain
There is as second part to this hit job that was floated last night. They are trying to source it to the Perry campaign. That would be a bonanza for Obama and the Democrats. I expect them to continue to push that too.
The entire style of the smear is Democrat. Every campaign Obama has run depended on destroying opponents before any election, by any means necessary. The particulars are pure Biden ala Clarence Thomas.
We have an entire year left and they have only just begun to smear.
Jen Rubin is going to get to the bottom of this. And then, Herman will be toast.
Ifblahblahblah . . . he. is. toast. — sez she.
No If Needed . . . She. Is. Twat. — sez I.
Ace is saying he “heard about this stuff a month ago, and I didn’t hear about two incidences. I heard about many more.
I did not have detailed information, certainly nothing publishable. But I heard there was a long and numerous history here.”
So: Here’s the big question Ace has: “Are we going to hear about other allegations in the future?”
LBascom: My big question: since Ace has the same information NOW that he had “a month ago”, why is he piling on NOW?
My answer: Because Ace is a whore.
John Edwards could not be reached for comment…
They react just the way they’re told to react. If we had an investigative journalist left in this country, he’d investigate why his fellow journalists stick so consistently to well-worn scripts.
Of *course* we’ll hear additional allegations. The allegations “piling up” is the *point*. Doesn’t matter if there’s no underlying crime.
He knows, Squid. Because they worked it out ahead of time.
Journolist lives!
As a young man growing up in the segregated South, Herman Cain had to ride in the back of the bus.
As a Presidential candidate, Herman Cain owns his own bus and has his picture on the side of it.
Today, Herman Cain got thrown under the bus.
non-overtly sexual hand gestures = down finger-twinkle. Mr. Cain is a man ahead of his time.
Lot of true colors showing today. Just keep tossing our people under the bus, it’ll stop eventually?
– If this politically motivated BS non-story hit piece doesn’t get some legs soon, it won’t be Cain laying under the bus.
I watched Cain at AEI live this morning. Just by way of commentary on that, I must say the man has terrific focus on and grasp of his tax plan and the ancillary issues surrounding it, especially in the midst of this all out diversionary attack from the left.
But sdferr, it doesn’t matter! Haven’t you heard?! THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD (according to a lot of Romney and Perry boosters) IS HOW CAIN HANDLES THIS!!!!
Feh. Can we have a candidate who doesn’t ask “how high” when the press yells “jump”?
heh, the press yells jump and I send Cain money. Not the proper reaction, I’m guessing? Damn.
One thing this smear can be used for is that it will delineate the network that is the successor of “Journalist”.
I can think of the donation as a non-overtly sexual gesture though, so there’s that.
National Press Club link up at C-Span.
Shorter Esquire: Republicans are bad and Herman Cain is a doodyhead!
So, if Ace had this “months ago,” does that imply it’s a likely Republican smear?
Yawn.
This is all they have and this guy has been at the front of the pack for this long?
Oh BTW, let’s do clear something up straightaway: This was leaked by either Romney or Perry’s camps.
If it was a Dem op, there’d likely be a little more substance…lawsuit, victim’s names, faces et al. If Cain’s GOP opponents had more, they’d have used WaPo most likely.
So Cain is now a member of the club.
Sorry about the media conspiracy, Rob C.
My advice would be to hold out on that meme until the campaigning starts in earnest after next summer’s conventions.
Not necessarily. A lefty could have been shopping it to Ace because they know Ace can’t stand non-establishment candidates.
Says Politico’s Jonathan Martin as he proceeds to assert a new detail while covering his ass with the “I think” wink-wink crap.
So, Boyd, in a profession of whores, liars, and sycophants, which category do you belong?
(No doubt you consider yourself “one of the good ones” — but your reliance on pushing your prejudices over what you can support with evidence is already shown in this thread.)
Roddy’s that most reliable, can’t fail no matter how bad you write it, character in cinema, the P with the HG.
The MSM didn’t want to talk about Weiner’s actual weener tweeted out to young women besides his new wife; it took Breitbart to force it on them. But unsubstantiated accusations of a non-sexual hand gesture back when Clinton sold the press on the ambiguous nature of the word “is”, why, that is headline news that can’t wait for the facts!
Nope, no media conspiracy here…
Mr. macgruder is a good reporter and there is absolutely no evidence to the contrary so there you go
Wow — go figure, Americans! — Cain cites the Declaration in support of his view of the limits of government.
Smitty writing about Stacy McCain at TOM.
In other words, Ace is a gutless pussy who had info but didn’t want to the be the first one to publish it in case he got downtwinkled.
If I’m reading this right.
Well Rob, I belong in the camp of getting it right and living with the blowback. Am I one of the good guys? That depends on where you stand, I suppose. A lot of people get angry at me because I write about frauds, scams and the like and if they own them, they get angry and write Emails like yours.
Prejudices? I have them in spades. I admit it, lay it out and acknowledge it when I’m wrong. That’s why some of the angriest E-mails and calls I get are from my sources, because if I don’t have the documents or people on the record, I don’t go with it.
This is a piece of crap story that could only have happened in the era of the ‘Net. Still, it’s odd that you’re pissed at reporters rather than, I don’t know, Romney or Perry and their staffs who are so very transparently behind this.
It’s a total non-story that unless he bungles, might actually help Cain.
If I had more time, I think I’d have a lot of fun looking for Rob’s comments in furor over the Bush (read: Rove’s 24/7 backchannel whispers) murder of John McCain in the 2000 primaries with respect to Breast Cancer funding. I’m certain that you posted long and hard in defense of McCain, whose wife Cindy, if I recall, was a cancer survivor.
Do we really need another thor? I don’t think so.
So can it, please.
Ernst,
I’m not sure I follow you.
I take it though that you disagree that A) The Romney or Perry camp’s are behind this and B) this is an unimportant story that becomes important only if Cain bungles this in some obvious fashion (or if, on the off-chance, it is proved via on-the-record interviews or documents that he actually did it.)
And I’m not convinced this “Crawford” is Rob Crawford, unless Rob — who still goes by “Rob Crawford” on other sites, has been carrying on like this on those other sites.
it’s the same guy
Good reporting:
“if I don’t have the documents or people on the record, I don’t go with it.”
Actual reporting:
“Romney or Perry and their staffs who are so very transparently behind this.”
Ernst,
I’m not sure I follow you.
I’m quoting Geoge Axelrod while handing out back-handed complements. Badly it seems.
30. LB:
Unless I am mistaken, Weiner’s dirty tweeting was entirely unknown but to him and his cadre of “partners” (right word?) until one of them tipped someone off who got it to Breitbart. Pretty much from the first it was a story that played deep and hard–well, you know what I mean–on both sides of the web. It was picked up fairly directly by that animatronic corpse known as the MSM, with a big caveat: Weiner denied it, point-blank and in entirety.
So that rerouted coverage since a direct and unambiguous denial is a hard thing to get around, for a few days anyhow, at least for the NYT and WaPo. Obviously, once it became increasingly apparent that Weiner was the biggest liar since Clinton, all bets were off.
In contrast, this story, which was assuredly shopped initially to some combination of WaPo and NYT (the WSJ generally doesnt move this stuff, even with a beefed up political operation) and was passed on since, well, there is no THERE there. So Politico picked it up since it needs, above all, hits.
Ha! Danny Boy, of all the tunes.
Fritz Kreisler has a go.
Roddy,I’ll give you the benefit on the Weiner time line, but my point is the same. Can you imagine this hitting every MSM outlet like it has if Politico had done this same story on any prominent Democrat?
LB:
I share this concern.
Well, it wasn’t Amazing Grace Rush, but then, you’re deaf, so slack accordingly given.
Why?
And, yes, it is the same Crawford.
I’m pissed off because I’m sick of this shit. I’ve seen the press spend the last few years smearing the Tea Partiers and now doing nothing but fluffing for the openly totalitarian Occupy thugs. The entirety of the press is corrupt, and you can pose as a straight-shooter all you want, but unless you’re working to destroy what passes for the American press, you’re part of the problem. It’s beyond bias and favoritism — it’s the rewriting of reality to serve the corrupt, the power-mad, and the most horrible elements of society.
If this “story” came from a campaign why isn’t that part of the reporting?! Aren’t we entitled to know if this was a shopped-around hit piece? Why aren’t the accusers identified? Why aren’t OTHER press organs pursuing the background of this hit job? Why are Breitbart’s sites the ONLY ones actually looking at the backgrounds and “extra-curricular activities” of the supposed noble, unbiased, above-the-fray “journalists”?!
And, Boyd, we have seen an active, on-going conspiracy of press “professionals” exposed — multiple times. Townhouse. Journolist. Cabalist. You cannot tell me that it hasn’t continued, more carefully. I see it happening. The same damned story lines — and the same exquisitely careful dances around other stories. Every damned newspaper, every damned radio station, every damned TV station, every damned cable network — same stories, same words, same buzz. Nothing resembling competition. Nothing resembling actual curiosity or drive to get the facts. Deny it all you want, it’s as obvious as the sunrise.
But we desperately need a press willing to dig and be honest.
Because if the press keeps going the way they’re going, they’ll have destroyed all possibility of peaceful political change in this country. Why bother trying to exercise freedom of speech when your words, well “it doesn’t matter what this sign says, you’ll say it’s racist anyway”? Why bother with freedom of assembly when a hundreds of thousands peaceably assembling is a non-event and a dozen literally crapping in the street are held up as the vanguard of a new movement?
Why bother running for office when the press will push lies about you? When they’ll cover for, celebrate, encourage the most deranged insanities? And when a good portion of your own supposed party will chime in? Because if they don’t — they’re next in the barrel.
I’d apologize for my tone if I felt it was the least bit unjustified. I’m not trying to be a “thor”, but if people feel that I am, OK, I’ll leave.
And they all played that tune long after it was an obvious lie.
How about the John Edwards affair story? Wasn’t just ignored. IT WAS BURIED.
Don’t leave Rob. I at least find value in your comments.
I sure don’t miss thor…
Crawford, we’ve got a guy in the middle of the machine, who knows its inner workings and uses that experience to enlighten this community. For the sake of those of us who find his insights useful, please refrain from shitting all over him and chasing him off.
Mr. Crawford if you stay you can have half my chow mein
I think everyone needs to thicken their skin a little.
If you can’t stand the heat and all that.
Grab a cup, we play full contact here.
Maybe we need a good flame war, and Squid, your just the flamer to start, pussy.
No, Rob. Don’t leave. You’ve been a valuable voice around here for a long time. And we’re most of us adults. We can disagree. It’s allowed.
So, no flame war huh?
OK, I take it all back. You’re not a flaming pussy Squid.
And Roddy…You DO have a heart of gold…
Hey,
I’m cool with it. No really. I keep most of my 9-5 life off this thread but you should really, really see what I get sent. Seriously, you ought to pick a fight with a multi-national a time or two. They play the full nine innings.
As to RC: There was a comment when the guy suggested that I kill myself that was a little north of asinine, but well, it’s super clear more than a few things have gone wrong in his life, so I can take it.
My favorite part of that story was when Jonathan Martin was on MSNBC–natch!–and said that he wasn’t going to go into “details.” No really, he said that. See this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/10/31/politicos_martin_were_just_not_going_to_get_into_the_details_of_exactly_what_happened.html
Let me ask you this–What, exactly, is a reporter for other than to go into as much detail as possible? I had always viewed what I–and others in the media–do as precisely going into as much detail as possible so that the reader knows what is happening and why it is important.
I should note for the record that I worked with Maggie and her brother at the NY Post and I like them both.
It’s okay that the Internet killed a lot of things but some of the things that died maybe shouldn’t have.
Reportorial standards strike me as one of them. No editor I ever had, anywhere, would have tolerated accusing a man of sexual harassment and not elaborated upon the context of the charges, offered supporting details et al….
Exactly, Roddy.
It’s like “reporting” today consists of sketching a few lines, maybe adding a spot of color here and there, and letting the observer fill in the details. Makes for some interesting discussions, but doesn’t help establish objective truth.
Oops. I think I realized the problem there.
I don’t think the internet killed reportorial standards. In fact, my Dad blames Cronkite.
Or third party payer.
Roddy
with all due respect, those kind of standards have been slipping for a lot longer than the Internet.
A lot of it started slipping away with the rise in prominence of J-schools that were/are run by leftists teaching the ideal that a journalist does more than mere reporting … s/he “guides” people to the correct conclusions.
I hear you DC, but the Web exacerbrated it. Being first is more important than being right, or in-depth.
That’s a big problem.
ah the journolist lives 1st alter now
Link
“Being first is more important than being right, or in-depth.
That’s a big problem.”
See Roddy, I don’t think you have the same perception of the MSM as I do. You give them too much innocence and too little credit IMHO.
I see them as calculating the story, and narrative, based on their own crony capitalist agenda. Being first is important on a story they want to tell, if they don’t want a story told, they don’t care much about being first. I think it misleading of you, in your seat of authority on the subject, to advance the notion they are just reactionary. They aren’t.
The alphabet media has become malevolent to classic liberalism, and our Republic on which it stands. And before cell phones even.
more about the hermanator’s sordid past:
Link
OK, I take it all back. You’re not a flaming pussy Squid.
Next time, Lee. Next time.
That’s bullshit, and you know it.
The #1 excuse pulled out of the asses of every goddamned “journalist” is “the rush to be first” or “competition in the news industry”. It’s pure, unadulterated crap. It lets “journalists” pat themselves on the back for being hard-hitting, shoulder-to-the-grindstone, blood-thirsty truth-tellers instead of the herd-instinct stenographers of lies they really are.
Let the other guy go first WITH BEING WRONG. Then destroy his ass by getting the story right.
Never. Fucking. Happens. Everyone reports the same damned story. Then buries the retraction.
As I noted in #27 he said that just after dropping a “detail” with a weasel word to cover himself if/when the “detail” is shown to be not true.
yes Mr. geoff Jonathan Martin offered this “detail”
inviting a woman up to a hotel room
but what did his story actually say?
Jonathan Martin’s attention to detail is as piss-poor as his sourcing I think.
Fucking hack.
My bad, I searched on “hotel” and so didn’t see the “suite” reference.
RC wrote: “hard-hitting, shoulder-to-the-grindstone, blood-thirsty truth-tellers…”
That is the most succint description of what I have aspired to be in my reporting. If I have failed, it is not thru want of effort.
You did quite well in your book.