Touched by Herman Cain

Herman Cain came to town last night. When some sort of political bigwig or candidate shows up, I try to go. I've seen a few, and missed a few.

SilverFiddle, a conservative, has an interesting comment. He made it in a blog post about Silvio Berlusconi:

"I think Herman Cain is done...

This is a "he said, she said," with no way to verify what really happened. A little less so for the two incidents where the women received settlements, since the association could publish a redacted copy of the reports and allow us to judge for ourselves.

The incident involving the woman that just came forward can never be verified. We are left to rely on character witnesses for both sides and examining other parts of their lives for a history of unsavoriness or other similar incidents.

I question Mr. Cain's judgment if he indeed placed himself in a position where he was with a woman alone. A powerful person who is prudent never does that. According to Mr. Cain and others, the two incidents that resulted in the settlements happened in public, not private.

I also question why this woman didn't go to the police. This was not some caddish behavior; she is alleging an assault. Not fighting evil is to countenance and nurture it. Leaving a predator free makes you complicit in his subsequent attacks."

Another person said to me that maybe he did some stuff that was nothing to him, but it mattered a lot to the women he did it to.

Myself, I do usually suspect it is true when sexual harassment/rape allegations come out against someone. Be it Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, Kobe Bryant, the Kennedy rapist, Mike Tyson, Andrew Weiner, or commentator Juan Williams. It's just that these allegations tend to pan out to be true a lot more of the time than they pan out to be false.

Western hero Silverfiddle's blog post is entitled "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words". Well, this is one of the photos I got of Cain. In this photo, he looks kind of guarded. And yes, he was wearing a pink shirt. I sat about 12 feet away from him. Cain did speak a thousand words or more. it is probably a typical campaign stump speech. He fired up the crowd, criticized President Obama, and told some about what he would do. He only obliquely referred to the sex scandal once.

And yes, he did shake my hand. If he becomes elected, it will the first President who's hand I've shaken since 1976.

Seeing the name of Silverfiddle's blog "Western Hero" put the tune to the fine Neil Young of the same name song in my head. A song that involves the Old West and militarism. It makes me think at the same time of Ronald Reagan, and Roland of Gilead, the gunslinger from Stephen King's meta-western "Dark Tower" series. I'm not sure what cowboys have to do with Herman Cain, but there is this article, and I'm sure Cain wants to be the next Reagan.