Herman Cain's Scandal Pain
Clarence Page

President candidate Herman Cain came to Washington to talk about his tax plans but ended up talking about sex. Welcome to the life of the top-tier candidate, Mr. Cain.

After his sexual harassment scandal broke over the weekend, celebrity conservatives predictably rallied to his defense. They charged media bias, attacked his accusers and blamed racism as a paranoid one-size-fits-all excuse. In short, they reacted with the same sort of baloney that they usually criticize in liberals.

In fact, Cain has no one to blame but his own political inexperience for the legs on this story. As the old Watergate-era saying goes, it's not the scandal that hurts you; it's the cover-up. In Cain's case, it is not the allegations that are throwing him off his message, it's his waffling answers.

Politico reports that during Cain's tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association at least two female employees left their jobs in the late 1990s after accusing Cain of sexually inappropriate behavior.

Citing "multiple sources" and documentation, Politico reported that the women signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave each of them financial payouts "in the five-figure range" to leave the association but also barred the women from talking about their departures.

After 10 days of attempts by the political news website to get a straight answer from his campaign office, Cain declined to comment Sunday when a Politico reporter confronted him in a tense street interview outside the Washington bureau of CBS News.

Over the course of televised public appearances the next day Cain's powers of recall improved. He acknowledged the allegations, but insisted that he had recused himself from the complaint process. He didn't know whether there was a settlement, he said at a National Press Club event that I attended, but quipped, "I hope it wasn't for much, because I didn't do anything."

But Cain amended his statement on the settlement in a later interview with Fox's Greta Van Susteren, saying he did recall hearing of a complaint and settlement with only one woman. He didn't remember for how much and maintained that he had done nothing inappropriate.

Whatever the truth may be, Cain created new problems for himself by trying to brush off this controversy. He's playing in the big leagues now and, as he himself quipped, "This bullseye on my back is getting bigger." Indeed, but you don't need to help it to grow, Mr. C.

Like any other top-tier candidate, Cain faces increased scrutiny from media and his opponent's research teams. He has to avoid even the appearance of evasion.

Yet his conservative allies tried mightily to deflect attention back onto familiar irritants of the political right, such as the media and Justice Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation fight against Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations.

Radio star Rush Limbaugh tore into Politico's story as an "unconscionable, racially stereotypical attack" and "the politics of minority conservative personal destruction."

Best-selling firebrand author Ann Coulter also referenced the Thomas case on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, saying, "Liberals detest, detest, detest conservative blacks," she said, partly because "our blacks are so much better than their blacks."

And Brent Bozell, head of the conservative Media Research Center, borrowed a memorable Clarence Thomas metaphor, calling the Politico story a "High-tech lynching" of Cain.

"In the eyes of the liberal media," Bozell wrote on the conservative Newsbusters website, "Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation."

Well, as an African American, I find it heartwarming that so many conservatives have become eagle-eyed watchdogs against any hint of racism, even if it only seems to show itself when liberals are the suspected instigators.

But liberals aren't Cain's biggest headache at this point in his campaign. His base already expects the "liberal media" won't give him an even break. His biggest concern has to be his fellow Republicans and the independent swing voters the party's eventual nominee will need in order to win the White House.

As an accomplished success story in the corporate world, Cain is a novice to politics. That's a great virtue to his fans who hate "big government" and "big media" except big conservative media. But amateurism is a handicap in big-time politics. Cain has soared in Republican polls with his straight talk. Now it is time for him to give some straight answers.