CAIN, CLINTON, AND THE MEDIA

Herman Cain’s nightmare began a week ago Monday (10/31) when the webzine Politico reported two women had accused him of sexual misconduct when he was president of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

The story was thin.  James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal summarized it this way: "Anonymous sources told Politico that unnamed women alleged that Cain said unspecified things."

It triggered a media feeding frenzy anyway.  ABC, NBC and CBS reported on the Cain "scandal" 84 times in the first week.

This contrasts with 0 as in zero, the number of times in 2008 ABC, NBC and CBS mentioned allegations of sexual misconduct by former Sen. John Edwards, who ran for president that year.

And it contrasts with exactly 4, the number of stories the broadcast networks ran in the week after Juanita Broaddrick said she’d been raped by President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Edwards fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was dying of cancer.  Mr. Cain, according to Politico, "had conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature."

Journalists who covered the Edwards’ campaign knew about the affair, but chose not to report it, said Martin Halperin of Time magazine.

"The standard of proof in this kind of intimate behavior is and should be very high," Michael Orestes, AP’s managing editor for U.S. news, said then.

That standard hasn’t been applied to Mr. Cain.  At week’s end we still didn’t know what he was supposed to have done.

Mr. Cain’s accusers received "five figure" settlements, Politico reported.  But those amounts lend credence to Mr. Cain’s assertion he did nothing wrong, said Kurt Schlichter, a trial lawyer who represents businesses in civil litigation.

"Lawsuits are so expensive to defend it makes good business sense to settle even the most frivolous cases," he said.  "It’s hard to get even the silliest charges tossed out, and even then it often costs upwards of six figures to do so."

Despite the media onslaught, Mr. Cain’s poll numbers actually improved.  It appeared he might survive the scandal.

But this Monday (11/07), Sharon Bialek said Mr. Cain groped her when she sought his help in finding another job.  Ms. Bialek, 50, had just been fired by the National Restaurant Association’s education foundation in Chicago.

And then one of the first two accusers has been identified.  Mr. Cain is a "monster," said Karen Krausharr, 55.

When Gennifer Flowers, then Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Ms. Broaddrick accused Mr. Clinton of sexual indiscretions, journalists expressed concern about their credibility.  Few have done so with regard to Mr. Cain’s accusers.

More should.  Ms. Bialek rarely has held a job for more than two years, has filed for bankruptcy twice, and has made accusations of sexual harassment before.

"She’s a complete gold digger," a friend of Ms. Bialek’s, quoted anonymously, told the New York Post.

"She has a history," Bill Kurtis of CBS told WLS radio Tuesday.  It may have been Ms. Bialek who was the sexual aggressor, "given her track record here," Mr. Kurtis said.

Ms. Bialek worked for CBS radio station WCKG in 2006-2007.

Ms. Krausharr is currently a press aide in the Obama administration, used to work for Clinton attorney general Janet Reno, and has contributed to Democrats.  At another job, she made a sexual harassment charge coworkers thought frivolous.

T.J. Ward, a private detective, fed audio of Ms. Bialek making her charges and of Mr. Cain denying them into computer software which examines stress level and other factors in people’s voices.  It can tell 95 percent of the time whether a person is lying, Mr. Ward said.

His analysis indicates Mr. Cain is truthful and Ms. Bialek is not.

In a Rasmussen poll Wednesday (11/09), 51 percent of respondents said it was at least somewhat likely the charges against Mr. Cain are both serious and true.

Saying a charge is serious doesn’t make it true.  Journalists pile rumor on top of innuendo, hoping people won’t notice how few facts lie beneath.

Journalists who didn’t think Mr. Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes were a big deal assert now the accusations against Mr. Cain disqualify him for the presidency.

There are many reasons for not supporting Herman Cain for president.  But if he is forced from the race by unsubstantiated allegations from people of questionable credibility, we’ll all be losers.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.