Andrew Sullivan (a TMV favorite) is live-blogging the Herman Cain press conference on sexual harassment allegations. GO HERE to follow it. Sullivan is always must-read live blogging.
Great minds think alike. If I did live blogging, I would have opened like Sullivan did below:
5.06 pm. A lawyer makes two key arguments. One: the amounts paid to settle two harassment claims prove they were “nuisances”, not legitimate allegations. Two: it’s only credible when someone has actually filed a formal legal complaint. And we have a blame-the-media narrative building. And Herman Cain hasn’t even spoken yet.
Cain quickly blamed the “Democrat Party machine” (so he can’t even use the name Democrats prefer) for the latest accuser coming forward.
Go to Sullivan to follow it. Cain keeps referring to himself in third person.
(Joe Gandelman will never do that in his posts. Joe Gandelman doesn’t believe in it. Now Joe Gandelman has to brew a cup of tea and watch the press conference and Joe Gandelman may blog later.).
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan’s conclusion:
5.37 pm. My take, for what it’s worth. Cain has just given this story major new life. The total denials are accusations of total cynicism and lies from a variety of women whose only common factor seems to be they were grossed out by Herman Cain. They will be forced to respond to being called liars. And I repeat: the existence of five separate complaints – and contemporaneous witnesses to those complaints – makes a big difference to me in trying to judge the truth of these stories. I see no ulterior motive, no grand conspiracy to prevent Cain from getting to the White House (and if there were, it would more likely be a Republican than a Democrat at this point), no reason for so many disparate women to say essentially the same thing.
So you conclude that Cain is either lying or in complete denial. Neither is exactly a recommendation for a potential president of the United States. I give him props for the presser, something Palin’s congenital lies and delusions could never have survived. But my sense is that this story will now not die, as Cain intended, but live for quite a while.
It’s five against one. It’s he-said vs she and she and she and she and she said (so far). Money was exchanged. It says a lot about this guy’s charisma that he can even pretend all of it – all of it – is completely false, never happened, didn’t occur.
I also have some related Tweets on my Twitter page HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.