Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Cain Scrutiny — Ctd

Josh Marshall at TPM summarizes the Herman Cain news feed surrounding the accusations of sexual harassment.

1. Politico allegations are false. Story is crap.

2. Yes, there were allegations. But they were false.

3. Yes there were allegations that were false and I don’t know what money was paid.

4. I don’t know whether money was paid. And it would be wrong for me to find out whether money was paid because it’s confidential.

5. There was a in-depth investigation. And I was cleared. But I don’t know anything about it.

6. Here’s the gesture that led to my getting accused of harassment.

7. Okay, I remember some discussion of a settlement number.

That goes along pretty close to what I figured would happen when the story broke: denial, non-denial denial, blame others, rally supporters, blame the liberal media, claim there are unseen forces out to get him, and this wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t a black conservative. Have we got a Scandal Bingo yet?

Setting aside the details of this particular case, it goes without saying that these stories follow the same arc with amazing consistency: think Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton. It makes you wonder why we think these people are so smart. (It also makes you wonder why, if there was a liberal media vendetta, it was Bill Clinton that got impeached, and Mr. Thomas was confirmed. But I digress.)

By the way, this isn’t the only story that has Herman Cain wondering why he didn’t just stick to selling books and pizza. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, his campaign has been getting by with a little help from some friends.

Herman Cain’s two top campaign aides ran a private Wisconsin-based corporation that helped the GOP presidential candidate get his fledgling campaign off the ground by originally footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas – something that might breach federal tax and campaign law, according to sources and documents.

Internal financial records obtained by No Quarter show that Prosperity USA said it was owed about $40,000 by the Cain campaign for a variety of items in February and March. Cain began taking donations for his presidential bid on Jan. 1.

Prosperity USA was owned and run by Wisconsin political operatives Mark Block and Linda Hansen, Cain’s current chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, respectively.

The authenticity of the records was verified by two individuals close to the firm.

As Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook) noted in All The President’s Men, “Follow the money.”