[Yet despite the maelstrom, Cain’s accusers remain anonymous and the details of the allegations oddly vague. With many conservatives believing that sexual harassment lawsuits are an industry and that frivolous cases are often settled to avoid more expensive litigation, there was a growing sense that Cain was being treated unfairly.]
Herman
Cain’s terrible, horrible, no good, very
bad week ended on a discordantly high note. Addressing a packed ballroom in Washington
“You know, I've been in Washington
The article in
question was one of
the few that had not been about allegations that Cain, the unlikely Republican
front runner in national polls, had behaved inappropriately with women while he
was president of the National Restaurant Association.
Instead, the article sought to bracket
Cain with the Koch brothers, the billionaire bogeymen for liberals who founded
the Americans for Prosperity group and pump money into conservative and liberal
causes. Rather than seek to wriggle out of the association, Cain embraced it,
declaring, as the room erupted: “I am the Koch brothers' brother from another
mother.”
The address by the former
motivational speaker, at the Americans for Prosperity annual conference, was vintage Cain – strong on
rhetoric, short on policy detail, powerfully delivered and unashamedly
politically incorrect.
Hours earlier, an ABC/Washington
Post poll had found
that Cain’s national popularity had improved during a week that, by any
conventional standards, had been disastrous.
Mitt Romney, the best-funded,
most-disciplined and most experienced candidate, was stuck on 25 percent while
Cain was up six points from a month at 23 percent and breathing down his neck.
As every student of American politics knows, national polls matter little in a
primary race. But the surveys in early-voting states like Iowa South Carolina
There’s no way this should be
happening. The 65-year-old grandfather’s response to the sexual harassment
claims that have emerged out of the woodwork after a dozen years has been
miserable. At least two cases were settled for a total of $80,000 after
allegations were made against him.
Rather than being prepared for
the inevitable disclosure of the cases, he was caught flat-footed, claiming at
first not to remember what had happened and then dribbling out details and
shifting explanations over the ensuing days. He fuelled more controversy by
blaming Governor Rick Perry’s campaign for planting the story, lost his temper
with the press and was barely able to talk about the US
By any normal rules of politics,
Cain should be toast. So what’s going on?
Simply put, the media and Cain’s
detractors have over-played their hand. By Friday night, Politico, which broke
the original story, had
published 94 articles on the allegations in under six days.
Every other major publication had followed suit. Every time he stepped out of a
room, Cain was mobbed by reporters.
Yet despite the maelstrom, Cain’s
accusers remain anonymous and the details of the allegations oddly vague. With
many conservatives believing that sexual harassment lawsuits are an industry
and that frivolous cases are often settled to avoid more expensive litigation,
there was a growing sense that Cain was being treated unfairly.
Cain’s very amateurishness became
almost endearing. Rather than mouthing slick talking points, Cain got angry
with the journalists (a profession loathed by most Republican activists) and
claimed that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching”.
That was the phrase used by
Clarence Thomas during the ugly confirmation hearings for his seat on the
Supreme Court in 1991. Thomas had been accused by Anita Hill, a former
subordinate, of making crude sexual comments.
Vilified and mocked by the Left,
Thomas’s righteous anger boiled over as he condemned the hearings as “a circus”
and “a national disgrace” in which “uppity blacks who in any way deign to think
for themselves” would be destroyed. “You will be lynched, destroyed,
caricatured by a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
Cain, of course, is also a black
conservative. As such, he sends many on the Left crazy because he defies the
standard categories of politics. White conservatives are eager to support
conservatives of colour partly to combat allegations of racism but also because
they appreciate the courage it takes for blacks to break out of the Democratic
party straitjacket.
Despite his anti-politician
message and his campaign gaffes (he did not know China had
nuclear weapons, had not heard of the Palestinian
right of return and
suggested he would free Guantanamo Bay
prisoners if terrorist
hostage-takers demanded it, to name but three) Cain is a shrewd operator.
While decrying race-based
politics, Cain has been happy to compare himself to Haagen Dazs black walnut ice
cream, joke that he’s a “dark horse” or quip that his Secret Service
codename should be “Cornbread”
. By Friday, a Cain Super PAC had cut a television ad entitled:
“High-tech lynching”.
Just as Barack Obama’s race was a
key part of his appeal in 2008, Cain is a more attractive candidate for
Republicans because he is black. Obama’s supporters responded with fury and
lobbed accusations of racism when their candidate came under legitimate attack
from the Clintons
Sexual allegations against a
black man are rightly treated with great suspicion by many Americans because
they play on the kind of fears and taboos examined in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird.
With the case against him thin and the accusation so incendiary, Cain’s
predicament is prompting more sympathy than opprobrium.
Those who leaked the details of
the 1990s sexual harassment cases might have thought that they’d destroy Herman
Cain and leave his campaign dangling from a tree. But, as befits this strange
and unpredictable election campaign, a funny thing happened on the way to the
lynching.
@ The Telegraph
PAKISTAN
[The circumstances of her death — including the cleansing of the crime scene, the police refusal of an autopsy request, and conflicting reports of the number of attackers and cause of death — have generated confusion about the case and raised questions about the possible involvement of the military government, then led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Ms. Bhutto’s rival.]
By Waqar Gillani
 |
Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Benazir Bhutto at a rally shortly before she was assassinated
in December 2007.
|
Ms. Bhutto
was killed after an election rally in 2007 in an attack by at least one gunman
and a suicide bomber, both of whom were believed to have been killed in the
assault.
The seven
people indicted on Saturday, who include the former police chief of Rawalpindi
In a
closed-door hearing at a high-security prison in Rawalpindi
The five
militants, who are believed to be members of the Pakistani Taliban, were
arrested four years ago and remain in jail, Mr. Azhar said. Two of them have
admitted to helping in the suicide bombing, he said.
The five
men were identified as Sher Zaman, Hasnain Gul, Rafaqat Hussain, Abdul Rasheed
and Aitzaz Shah. All are from the troubled northwestern region of the country.
The two
police officers charged were Saud Aziz, who was the Rawalpindi
Mr. Azhar
said they had been charged with failure to perform their duties by ordering the
crime scene hosed down two hours after the attack, by removing evidence and by
reducing Ms. Bhutto’s security detail several days before the attack. The two
officers were free on bail.
All seven
suspects denied the charges on Saturday.
The killing of Ms. Bhutto on Dec. 27, 2007 , as she stood in the sunroof of a car waving to crowds two
weeks before parliamentary elections, threw Pakistani politics into turmoil.
Twice elected prime minister, she was the leader of Pakistan
Her
husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was later elected president, and her party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, leads the coalition
government.
The
circumstances of her death — including the cleansing of the crime scene, the
police refusal of an autopsy request, and conflicting reports of the number of
attackers and cause of death — have generated confusion about the case and raised
questions about the possible involvement of the military government, then led
by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Ms. Bhutto’s rival.
A United
Nations investigation reported last year that the failure of Pakistani
authorities to effectively investigate the killing was “deliberate” and that
the investigation had been “severely hampered” by the country’s powerful
intelligence agencies.
The report
singled out Mr. Aziz, the police chief, for ordering the washing of the scene
and impeding the investigation. But it also said that Mr. Aziz gave the order
after receiving a call from army headquarters, possibly involving Maj. Gen.
Nadeem Ijaz Ahmad, then director general of military intelligence.
The
government had blamed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban,
for masterminding the attack. Mr. Mehsud was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike in 2009.
Mr.
Musharraf, who fled the country in 2008 under threat of impeachment, has also
been charged in the case. A Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for him in
February, accusing him of failing to provide Ms. Bhutto with adequate security.
Mr.
Musharraf has been living in exile in London
Meanwhile,
the legal case against the suspects in custody has been delayed by procedural
moves on both sides, although four years is not a particularly long time for an
indictment in a murder case in Pakistan
“Whether
the case is high profile or low profile, the court has to adopt the legal
procedure to ensure justice and fairness,” said Syed Zahid Hussain Bukhari, a
former judge and prosecutor in Punjab Province
The
indictment starts the trial phase of the prosecution. The court instructed the
accused to present witnesses at the next hearing, on Nov. 19.
@ The New York Times
@ The New York Times
