Do you still support this man? If you're a Republican, polls show 7 in 10 of you don't care about all the women accusing him of sexual harassment.
Another day, another woman who comes forward with stories of sexual harassment by Herman Cain. With four different women now accusing Cain of improper (and disgusting) behavior, you’d think those on the right would stop defending him.
You of course, would be wrong. Never underestimate the complete, blind loyalty that far right wackos have towards their own (“their own”, being those on the right, and wackos…seems to go hand-in-hand). I read this story on Slate.com this morning, and couldn’t believe what was being said by those on the right, in defense of Cain. A sample of the lunacy from this story and from elsewhere:
- John Derbyshire – National Review – “Is there anyone who thinks sexual harassment is a real thing?”
- Laura Ingraham – “We have seen this movie before and we know how it ends. It always ends up being an employee who can’t perform or who under-performs and is looking for a little green.”
- Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) – Sexual harassment is “a terrible concept”, with a misguided tendency to “define an action by the perception of the perceived victim.”
- Former Sen. Fred Thompson – “These alleged victims and their lawyers – no matter what they may say publicly – are champing at the bit to come forward for their day in the limelight and the inevitable book deal.”
- Sen. Rand Paul (R – Kentucky) - “There are people now who hesitate to tell a joke to a woman in the workplace, any kind of joke, because it could be interpreted incorrectly.”
- Rep. Andy Harris (R – Maryland) - “What we ought to be concentrating on is not wasting time paying attention to issues other than the economy and how we’re going to get out of this mess we’re in.”
- Newt Gingrich – “He (Cain) is out there trying to help a country that’s in desperate trouble, and he has gotten more coverage over the last few days over gossip.”
- Anne Coulter – “The two utterly innocent conservatives who have been falsely accused are both conservative blacks”, discussing her belief it’s racism on the part of “feminist women who hate conservative black men”.
- Rush Limbaugh - “This is gutter partisan politics, and it’s the politics of minority conservative personal destruction. It really is about blacks and Hispanics getting too uppity.”
My favorite is from Kurt Schlichter in the New York Post – “Where sexual harassment law once protected women from being forced to be the playthings of crude lechers, it’s been transformed to enforcing a prim puritanism that drains the humor and humanity from the workplace.” Ask the woman who came forward today if having HER LEG AND CROTCH grabbed is just part of “humor and humanity” in the work place. Should men be given free reign to make disgusting and unwanted sexual advances towards women, and simply throw up their hands and say “Just Joking!!” when those women rebuff those advances?
For those on the right, it seems sexual harassment isn’t a problem with the accused, it’s a problem with the accuser. The comments above by those on the right seem to assume that 1) a woman ONLY makes an accusation of sexual harassment, if she wants to profit from it, 2) a woman who makes an accusation is simply overreacting to normal interplay between men and women, or 3) this is simply driven by liberal media and politicians. As the Slate story above openly wonders, does the concept of sexual harassment even EXIST in the minds of conservatives?
Evidently for many on the right, sexual harassment just isn’t a big deal. For 7 out of 10 Republicans, a recent poll said the recent allegations will make no difference in their support for Cain. WHAT…THE…HELL!?!?!? Look at how Republicans treated Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Clinton was obviously a cheating, womanizing pig, but that was consensual at least. How can Republicans try to bring down the Clinton administration based on his affair(s), but support Cain when FOUR different women accuse him of sexual harassment?
Republicans have already somehow managed to politicize climate change, somehow trying to make a completely scientific issue into a political one. They have somehow managed to politicize evolution. It appears that for Republicans, sexual harassment too is simply some kind of political issue.
Or even worse…for Republicans, sexual harassment simply doesn’t appear to be an issue AT ALL.
