The End Is In Sight

Herman Cain is toast. It may be white, whole wheat or, as he would prefer it, black walnut toast, but it's over.

Not today, maybe not next week, but it's over. The New York Times reports that in a nationally televised press conference on Tuesday, anticipating calls to end his presidential run, he declared that “ain’t going to happen because I’m doing this for the American people and for the children and the grandchildren. And I will not be deterred by false, anonymous, incorrect accusations.”

One political axiom has it "when you're explaining, you're losing." Another might be "when you're denying you're leaving, you're already on your way out." And Herman Cain, apparently facing pressure to drop out of the Repub presidential race, now has been forced to deny defiantly denies that he's going to end his race for the Repub nomination for president.

Cain had a great opportunity to get out of the controversy swirling around allegations of sexual harassment unscathed- and even strengthened. On the very conservative The American Spectator, the conservative "Green Lantern" this morning blogged

All Cain had to do was admit he might have done something a little untoward and apologize. Something like this: "I'm an old school guy. I didn't realize I was offending anyone. Back home where I go to church I can walk up to a pretty young woman in the choir and say, 'My, you're just as cute as a button' and nobody will think I'm sexually harassing her. All this stuff was new to me and it took me awhile to learn the rules. But I haven't acted that way in a long time and it won't ever happen again. I'm sorry and I hope these women will forgive me."

This would have been, in part, a de facto admission of wrongdoing: "I haven't acted that way in a long time and.... I hope these women will forgive me." Cain then could have gone on to emphasize the importance in this environment of economic and tax policy and extolled the benefit of his 9-9-9 plan, omitting the part about how it would reinforce the control of society by the rich and powerful and further decimate the middle class.

Instead, it has been unsubstantiated, ludicrous accusations of racial bias against a black conservative; the usual rants against the "liberal media;" and attacks against the women involved. Gloria Allred's client, Ms. Bialek, has had to fend off inferences that she has spoken out only because of financial difficulties, including twice filing twice for bankruptcy. Further, as Bill Press writes, "Cain and his attorney also declared that Bialek’s appearance in New York was the first time in 14 years she’d told anyone about what happened between her and Cain – even though her attorney read affidavits from two friends who heard the whole story from her as soon as she returned to Chicago from Washington."

And now comes a more traditional, arguably uglier, attack, straight from Herman Cain PAC, beneath the caption "Ew, gross! Who the hell does this ugly b1tch think she’s fooling?" and the title "Herman Cain Accuser Karen Kraushaar works for Obama and she's ugly:

Looks are subjective, of course and most people would not characterize Ms. Krashauer as "ugly." Still, let's play that game with reference to Sharon Bialek:

Share|