You’ve heard the saying before……A week is a lifetime in politics. And this past week or two is testament to that. Two “sex scandals” – Herman Cain and Justin Bieber. High placed Republicans are enamored with Bieber’s crisis management capabilities. In the face of the “baby-daddy” scandal, Bieber says unequivocally that he doesn’t know the lady and will submit to a paternity test as soon as he is back in the country. Full stop, end of story (and truly – end of story: have you heard any coverage of this lately).
Cain, on the other hand, in the face of the latest claim of sexual harassment, says he has no recollection of ever meeting the lady, and has “never acted inappropriately with anyone”. Really? Never acted inappropriately. No inappropriate comment, joke, or look. Not once. To anyone. Really? And oh yes – he’ll submit to a lie detector test, “if necessary”, maybe, sort of.
And let’s not forget – he says one of the sexual harassment claims was found to be baseless and an “agreement” was initiated as a “personnel matter”. Newsflash Herm! Sexual harassment is a “personnel matter”.
So let’s break this down. Sexual harassment is an issue of many shades. In its most minor form, it could be telling an off-color sexually oriented joke or making a flippant comment. But – someone gets offended by the joke or comment and files a complaint. Even if there was no intent to sexually harass, and as ‘innocent’ as that may sound, it is still sexual harassment. In its most egregious form, it could involve physical aggression – but typically involves a “reward” vs. “punishment” (e.g. “I’ll give you a promotion if you have sex with me” or “If you don’t have sex with me I won’t give you a raise”). And most times, the reward or punishment is only implied. Now it is true that many cases of sexual harassment boil down to he said she said. And in those cases a thorough investigation is still conducted and many things are considered – including previous patterns of behavior.
Considering the Cain facts as we know them – we have four “complaints” and one “anecdote”. And although we don’t know who the complainants are – they are not anonymous. They presumably filed their complaints to the appropriate company representative with their version of the harassing behavior.
In Cain’s defense – it is true that sometimes, figuring out what is right and what is wrong becomes an orphan to expedience. It may be cost effective to make a “token” payoff (even if that “token” seems significant) and have the issue go away – versus the expense of litigation. However, to say the pattern here is disturbing is an understatement equivalent to saying our economy is in a bit of a slow period. Even more disturbingly, the anecdote (if the accuser is credible and if it can be reasonably thought to be true) represents the most egregious form of sexual harassment. It is predatory harassment.
So, instead of Herman Cain going with the “it never happened, well something happened but it was baseless and personnel did it, but I don’t really remember just now but I might sometime so I’ll take a lie detector test someday maybe” defense – I think he should have taken to the Shaggy defense: “It wasn’t me.” At least then we’d have a catchy song running through our heads.
Getting back to Justin Bieber: the Republican Party does have a couple of issues with him as their nominee – He’s 16 (the President has to be at least 35) and he was born in Canada (not the 51st State yet). No worries, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader said “we’re not doing anything in Washington anyway, so we may as well amend the constitution to allow teenage popstars from Canada to become the leader of the free world.”
Justin Bieber for President!
(see “A Million and One Ways to be One-in-a-Million”; Chapter 6 – Give My Regards to Broadway)
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