Herman Cain is fighting back against accusations made yesterday by Sharon Bialek. Cain will hold a press conference at 5 p.m. Eastern today to address the charges:
“There is not an ounce of truth to all these allegations” and the graphic account from Sharon Bialek is “totally fabricated,” the Georgia businessman told late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
“I’m going to talk about it,” Cain said, adding “we are taking this head on” — a reversal from just days ago when told
reporters he was done answering questions about the matter.
Others also are coming to Cain’s defense, via Backyard Conservative, a prominent Chicago radio host says Bialek has “a history,” suggesting that Bialek had a history of prior allegations and suggesting that “the roles may have been reversed” in the car as to who was the aggressor based on her past conduct. It’s vague, filled with innuendo, and based on anonymous sources. In other words, it’s what Politico did to Cain non-stop for a week.
Also, Chicago newspapers are reporting on Bialek’s substantial financial and legal problems.
Great quote in defense of Herman Cain from prominent feminist (via James Taranto, h/t Instapundit):
If the latest accusation against Herman Cain is true, he “is not guilty of sexual harassment. He is accused of having made a gross, dumb and reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life. . . . In other words, [Cain] took
‘no’ for an answer.”That quote is from Gloria Steinem, the big-time feminist, though of course the man she was defending wasn’t Herman Cain. It was Bill Clinton, after Kathleen Willey accused him of groping her in the Oval Office.
I’ll update this post as new information becomes available.
Updates: From MacsMind (h/t reader Charles):
“She was fired from her job, and her boyfriend suggested she contact Cain in hopes he could help her find employment.”.
In this particular incident she was fired for falsely accusing her boss of sexual harassment, a charge denied by co-workers, as well as being pretty much a pain in the ass to work with.
“I remember her as a time-waster, and rabble-rouser. If she didn’t get her way she cried about sexual harassment”. A former co-worker, a female no less, emailed me. “She was trouble with a capital “T”.
And, a Chicago television station interviewed Bialek’s fiance, and he stated he just found out about this a couple of days ago himself (at the end of this video). Really? Despite Cain’s rise in the polls for weeks and the Politico accusations floating around since October 30, Bialek just told her fiance about it shortly a day or two before she got on a plane to fly to a press conference with Gloria Allred?
And, they were good friends at a Tea Party convention as this story and image from The Chicago Sun-Times indicates (h/t @InpatientMed)(added, the photo is Cain next to the woman, talkshow host Amy Jacobson, who saw the embrace, not Cain with Bialek):
They hugged each other backstage in a full embrace like old friends.
She grabbed his arm and whispered in his left ear.
She kept talking as he bent to listen, and he kept saying “Uh, huh. Uh, huh.”
And her pushback to the pushback (has anyone asked her if she ever has made a claim of sexual harassment in the past, as suggested in the links above):
And, here’s Amy Jacobson’s account of when Cain met Bialek at a Tea Party conference, which Bialek described as a brief awkward encounter, but Jacobson described otherwise:
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[…] ANOTHER UPDATE: The pushback against Sharon Bialek begins. […]
Oh, I love it when the left’s words are thrown back in their faces, exposing their hypocrisy!
Indeed, the double standard still stands.
I eagerly await the Cain press conference!!
This is not to say that Bialek’s testimony is true, but if is is true, I am pretty darn sure that grabbing a woman’s genitals and forcing her head to your crotch while telling her that is how she gets a job constitutes more than a “pass.”
Listen to what she said. She never said he touched her genitals, or pulled her head into his crotch. She said he started to move his hand in that direction and started to move her head in another direction, but never said how far and when she told him to stop he did. Big difference. It’s not “assault”. People throwing that word around have an agenda or are ignorant.
Professor, in all fairness, her story is that his hand was under her skirt. Maybe my characterizing it as “grabbing her genitals” overstated his behavior, but saying he “started to move his hand towards her crotch” understates it just as much. Also, nice touch with he started to move her head “in a different direction” because her words were “grabbed my head and brought it towards his crotch.” You also ignore the part where he connected it all to getting a job. I am pretty sure that quid pro quo is a textbook example of sexual harassment (indeed, it would be harassment if he only said “I’ll give you the job if you go down on me.”)
I didn’t claim it was assault, so not sure why you bring that up. I said it is unfair to characterize his behavior toward Bialek if true as a simple rebuffed pass, and as I pointed out above, the quid pro quo easily qualifies as harassment. Yes, there is a double standard on the left, I fully agree. They will give their politicians a pass on behavior that they won’t give Republicans; however, I hope that doesn’t mean that our best answer is to ignore what our guys do.
Again, I don’t know if Cain is guilty or innocent, and I fully agree that nothing has been proven, but let’s not conflate the issue of what happened with what is alleged to have happened. What you are suggesting is that if Bialek’s allegations are true, they should be ignored as a simple rebuffed pass. That simply is not the case, and we shouldn’t engage in that sort of spin even though the left does.
I don’t believe the embellishments in the story, likely added by Allred, including the tit-for-tat job comment, and exactly what happened in the car. Why don’t I believe it. Use your brain! If he was going to grope in a car, he wouldn’t have paid for her to have a fancy, ungraded hotel suite, taken her to a nice restaurant, or otherwise behaved like a guy on a date. It is plausible that he thought she was interested in him and there were “possibilities”. But that’s it, and that “it” still is without evidence regarding the details. The rest is hogwash.
Ummm… what? Again, you don’t have to believe her; I am waiting to see what his response is, and if it is just attacking the woman, like his statement released to the press, I am inclined to believe he doesn’t have a better answer, which would trouble me. I think the important thing is whether she can corroborate the corroborable parts of her story, such as the hotel upgrade and the dinner. But this response appears to be, “Why pay for dinner when you can just try to have sex with her for free?” I don’t understand that line of thinking at all.
Maybe? Ya think? Unless her skirt was more of a belt than a skirt, a hand under it would be nowhere near her genitals, and would certainly count as a pass. Rather more direct and uncouth than one might hope for, but nothing even approaching the pass Bill Clinton made at Paula Jones.
It’s more than a pass.
I also think this kind of behavior (if true) really diminishes Cain’s credentials as a businessman.
Being head of the National Restaurant Association already seemed like a pretty dubious “business” credential to me, because the NRA obviously ISN’T a business as such. It struck me as the kind of job a very well connected guy would get that would enable him to live, eat and travel in the style of a major business executive without actually having to run a profitable corporation.
If it’s the case that Cain was also treating his job at the NRA as an opportunity to nail hot D.C. chicks, how can we take his so-called “business” career that seriously?
Of course, it’s possible, despite the apparent “red flags,” that Cain is being grossly mischaracterized, and that he’s not a skirt-chaser at all. I’ll certainly grant that possibility. However, if he IS a skirt-chaser, I can’t easily ignore that (as some people seem prepared to do) because it would seem to taint his whole image as some kind of paragon of private-sector virtue.
I’ve got some experience with these types of associations from my family’s machining business, Manth-Brownell, Inc., which I spent some time working for before I got my law degree. The business is a member of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Precision Machined Parts Association (PMPA) and my father spent a few years as a PMPA board trustee.
A lot of these business associations are run pretty much like businesses, but with a lobbying focus. It’s not just a cushy job used to travel, although a LOT of travel is involved. There’s a lot of meeting with association members, consensus building and then lobbying either for or against legislation or administrative rules which damage your business model or can open doors to new business types.
From a business standpoint, they have to at least break even, and most like to have a positive cash flow in order to build up “war chests” to take on the next big anti-X organizational push.
Strangely enough, it’s exactly the kind of thing you get drafted to do after you turn around a couple of big, unprofitable business divisions or large-sized businesses when you happen to be between jobs, because you have shown you’ve got the skill-set to understand the problems involved, and the association board members ask you to share that experience with ALL the members in order to make a better business environment (developing best-practices across the association).
As for Cain’s business career, look at the OTHER stuff he’s done if you don’t find the Nat’l Restaurant Assoc. compelling:
– BS Mathematics, Masters computer Science
– At 36 was managing 400 Burger King Stores in Philadelphia (as a Pillsbury subsidiary) and his region showed strong improvement in 3 years
– Appointed to Godfather’s Pizza (another Pillsbury subsidiary) in 1986, which he then BOUGHT from Pillsbury in 1988 (leveraged buy-out)
– Omaha Branch Fed. Reserve Bank of Kansas City 1989-1991.
– Member of the Board of Directors Fed. Reserve Bank of Kansas City 1992, Deputy Chairman 1992-1994, Chairman 1995-1996
– 1996 leaves Godfathers Pizza to become CEO of Nat’l Restaurant Assoc.
-Board member of Aquila, Inc, Nabisco, Whirlpool, Reader’s Digest and AGCO, Inc.
Honestly, if he really was a ‘skirt-chaser’ I think we would have had at least had one “Cain was cheating on his wife with me” claim by now. It’s starting to look like Bialek has a history of suing for workplace harassment, and many other issues that will erode her credibility. Lump that with the three Politico accusers that won’t come forward even after being released from their NDA’s and this all really does sound like a fabrication. Regardless of whether Cain turns out to be the Republican frontrunner, I want to see him smash through these smear campaigns.
My questions are: How did she get in Cain’s car? Did he even know her? She says she got in touch with him to help her get a job. How did she get through to him? You have to go through many people to get the guy at the top. And why did she think her ultimate boss would help her get another job when she had just got laid off from his company? Why would he bother about one amongst thousands? If it was true that Cain upgraded her hotel room, how dumb was she not to know his intentions? A person who was not open to this type of cr*p would have said no then and told the hotel people to put her back in the room she ordered. Why would she go with him to deserted NRA offices? If she worked for this organization for several years, had she never visited these offices before? This all sounds like a load of bull. And when you add Allred to the equation, it sinks to the lowest of the low. In her press conference, she had to read the whole story and she read it like she had never seen it before. The whole thing is not credible. Cain is not my candidate, but I hate these smear politics dims are so fond of.
Many commenters are blaming Romney for this junk, but this whole farce fairly screams of obama’s tactics. Obama has to take Cain out before he is nominated. Obama loses everything if that happens. Indeed, obama must take out all republican candidates. Before the 2008 elections, obama never had a serious opponent (wel, he didn’t have one then either). He took everyone of them out before the election and that’s what he is trying to do here. Republicans need to remember it’s ABO all the way no matter who gets the nomination.
Plus, according to Bialek, he pushed her head toward his crotch.
I suppose she wants us to believe he intended to have her unzip his trousers with her teeth.
That, and the tit-for-tat job comment are obvious embellishments. He paid for a hotel suite in order to grope her in a car?
Nothing in the story says that he simultaneously grabbed her head and reached under her skirt.
James Carville made the “drag $20 through a trailer park” comment. I wonder how much they had to drag got get this “lady.”
I have to wonder who is paying for Allred and the other attendant expenses. Flying both of them to DC, hotels and local transport, plus Allred’s initial retainer must add up in the thousands. I highly doubt Bialek has that kind of cash in hand.
and last month she goes up and hugs him….something smells fishy.
I”ll leave that to your imagination.
You type faster than I do.
LOL but you typed more so its a tie 🙂
Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Bialek met and hugged Cain at a Tea Party meeting a month ago. Doesn’t seem to be the sort of behavior to exhibit toward someone you claim sexually assaulted you.
yes bialek is a bad person, and paula jones was trailer trash.
and cain and bj clinton are totally innocent.
yeah, sure.
and mr Jacobson: what cain is alleged to have done to bialek is sexual assault.
Really? cite the statute. There isn’t a jurisdiction in the country which would prosecute someone who began to make a sexual move towards another adult with whom he had just had dinner and was taking back to the hotel, and stopped as soon as it was rebuffed and before any actual sexual touching. Criticize Cain for the behavior but don’t try to criminalize it.
she said stop and, per her, he did. no matter what sexual assault laws may be in place (if any) this negates it.
Dating sounds like fun in this fantasy world:
Gentleman: That was a fine dinner we had.
Woman: I fully concur.
Gentleman: I would like to put my hand on your leg with the hope that we may ultimately have a sexual encounter. Are you agreeable?
Woman: No, I am not agreeable.
Gentleman: Excellent, then I shall take you back to your room.
Brilliant post, Professor! The Gloria Steinheim quote spotlights the hypocrisy practiced by the left and the DemocratMedia Complex also known as the mainstream media.
Chicago Obama’s “politics of personal destruction” cleared his path to glory of opponents in a “scorched earth, take no prisoners” campaign of smears and innuendo.
Why would a woman who claims to have rebuffed such alleged sexual overtures cozy up to Cain for a photo a month before going public with these allegations? Was she hoping for an opportunity to create a current sexual overture claim, but failing that, fell back to a fictional historical account?
Keep digging!
Can this be characterized as “political assassination”?
I would have given her a 50/50 on credibility until she admitted that she lives in the same building as David Axlerod…. just no such thing as coincidences.
Do you have a link to that? I have not seen or read that anywhere….. I have read that she was using a lawyer named David Axelrod, but it is not the same person, according to Michelle Malkin.
I would be most interested in a link to that.
It was in the interview with Martha Macallum this morning right before Gloria Allred jumps in. Macallum read off her address, asked if Axlerod lived in the same building. She said that she sees him in the gym frequently. I just caught the edge of it – I don’t think I misheard it.
Great recap. It will be interesting to see the details emerge. Dragging her 13-year old son into this is pretty strange, on top of so much else that seems odd.
The only link I’d add is Ben Smith, in one of the – what is it up to, 350? stories at Politico: Barack Obama’s campaign style: Go negative, stay clean – may mean reporters are chafing at being the lapdogs.
Two things make zero sense to me:
1) Setting up a meeting with the head of the company that just fired you to ask for help in finding another job
2) Needing help to find a job in the roaring mid 90s when you basically had to be dead to not be employed
Im not a Cain supporter by any stretch. His rise in the polls has been incomprehensible to me given that the ultimate goal is defeating Obama. But, this thing stinks to hell. My worry is that her credibility gets shattered and he walks away from this stronger.
Cain’s confusion on so many issues, and his three years as a lobbyist already make him weak.
Even if Bialek was the aggressor/manipulator, if Cain actually upgraded the room and was willing to have this “date/meeting”, it is even more trouble for him. Singing hymns in public doesn’t will cover up such behavior.
Cain has been useful for pushing the tax plan dialogue along, and now for exposing the hypocrisy of the leftist media. If this woman lives in Axelrod’s building, the more important pattern exposed here is the Obama/Alinsky strategy of destroying competing candidates, not Cain’s interest in using position to pick up women (if that comes out). Cain has been useful in some ways, but I’m looking at him as a useful “sacrificial layer”, like Palin was for months. I can’t see him coming out of this stronger, except for maybe a brief “outrage” boost in the polls.
I’m leaning to Gingrich as most competent and most likely to defeat Romney, at this late date. But I’d like him to sign a contract with conservative America on a few issues like the global warming baloney.
Fair warning: I’m making some assumptions for the purposes of this post.
It kind of depends on what her former position was why she would meet with the Association CEO and get the upgraded room (stuff I don’t know).
WE (now) know she was canned because she made an unfounded “Sexual Harassment” complaint against her former boss, as well as being a troublemaker, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t good at her job, and also that “complaint” information may not have been available at the time Mr. Cain was meeting with her.
It’s possible that she said all the right things at dinner for him to think that she might be lobbyist material, or perhaps that she might be some sort of regional office manager type material, which would then make sense for him to say ‘let me show you the offices.’
She may have appeared to be a rising star who could have been recruited to the Association at the time, and sometimes, with the right connections, you meet with the top of the food chain. She might have passed off her joblessness as a personality conflict, rather than a firing for-cause.
As for needing help to find a job in the 90s: Using your networking opportunities is faster and more efficient than cold-calling. If you know somebody who is plugged into the top-level businesses, they’re GOING to know what is immediately open and EXACTLY who you need to talk to to have your resume on the top of the pile, as well as being able to say “Mr. Cain said I should speak to you” giving both the opportunity to name-drop AND the implication that the person suggesting you thinks you might be a good fit for the organization.
Related to press-generated smears on Cain, Team HillBuzz follows the Politico standard of journalism. HillBuzz has an excellent new blog radio show. In response to the Cain situation, they detail OBAMA’S GAY EXPLOITS. It is compelling listening.
Does anyone remember Tawana Brawley or the Duke students? It is easy for anyone to make an accusation, much harder to prove.
This woman is lying. Her initial “interview” gave several indications that she was fabricating this story. Now, it begins to unravel.
Herman Cain will be addressing all of these prevarications head-on this afternoon. Should be interesting.
I’m inclined to think that this is confused panic on her part as her fiancee just lost his job as president of a medical equipment company and is currently seeking new opportunities which leaves them in a house in Mundelein, IL without an income.
Why didn’t she make these allegations and “give a voice” to blah blah blah when Cain ran for president in 2000? Or when he ran for Senate in 2004?
Why did she accept the hotel upgrade or agree to meet him for dinner? I wouldn’t have done either given the circumstance was supposed to be professional/business (networking, too, not even an interview, so why did she have to physically fly to DC?). Any woman with even half a brain knows better than to accept gifts from men (especially men in power) they don’t know well. Business lunches are appropriate, not swanky dinners. She sent all the wrong signals, whether purposefully or not, and he (if true) made a clumsy, boorish pass at her. Her only complaint about it was that she has a boyfriend? But even so, he took “no” for an answer immediately, by her own admission.
[…] with them, wouldn’t it be a good tactic (for the Cain campaign) to bring out a new accuser who’s allegations can be discounted (rightly or wrongly) thereby casting any other accusers […]
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid…d_axelrod.html
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/11…n-accuser-1-3/
One accuser lives in the same building as Axelrod, another is in the Obama administration. You can’t make this up, unreal!
[…] The pushback has begun in earnest. […]
One of the accusers got a job in the Obama administration last year. Curiouser and curiouser.
http://www.dividedstates.com/sharon-bialek-paid-undislcosed-amount-to-lie-about-herman-cain-sexual-harrasment-charge/
I don’t think I have ever seen a story fall apart as fast as this one. It’s like they aren’t even trying anymore and just relying on the media to cover up the discrepancies.
[…] see the Lonely Conservative, Legal Insurrection, Cold Fury, and the Bullet Proof […]
Has anyone noticed that Bialek’s eyes look like those of Michelle Bachmann in those “crazy look” pictures?
Because the number of accusers has not jumped to 5, commenter Jenny at Gateway Pundit has suggested a drinking game….you know the rest.
I have a great idea. How about a campaign to kick in the cost of a drink for each new accusation to the Cain campaign? We can call it the Cain drinking game.
I shoulda hit the “preview” button. “not” should be “now.”
The ugly side of it is simpler than all the pundit story gnashing indicates … and it pisses me off.
No doubt in my military mind that it is simply, and despicably, this:
Accuse a very black man of lusting after a white woman, even a chubby twit white woman…from Chicago (hello?).
Does a couple things:
1. Tries to lower black audience positive perceptions of Cain, especially among black women.
2. Tries to rile up southern white voters, who the left believes (or wants you to believe…) are still stuck on Jim Crow et al., especially if they’re Republican.
It has been very carefully staged I assure you.
[…] William Jacobson thinks so. […]
Please. SHE GOT IN THE CAR WITH HIM AFTERWARDS?!? Do you seriously think, if their encounter was as she said, she would have ‘asked him to take her back to her hotel’? LOL, you’re all a bunch of guys, right? NO! She would have walked, or taken a cab, or slipped out the back door or , .ANYTHING! Anything but get into a car with the guy. “Take me back to the hotel?”” Errr . . sound like an invitation?? It’s baloney, I can’t believe so many people are falling for it.
[…] And William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection tells us that the latest accuser has some issues; Others also are coming to Cain’s defense, via Backyard Conservative, a prominent Chicago radio host says Bialek has “a history,” suggesting that Bialek had a history of prior allegations and suggesting that “the roles may have been reversed” in the car as to who was the aggressor based on her past conduct. It’s vague, filled with innuendo, and based on anonymous sources. In other words, it’s what Politico did to Cain non-stop for a week. […]
[…] The Juanita Broaddrick moment for Herman Cain is the very strange encounter Sharon Bialek had recently with Herman Cain: “The Cain Encounter … […]
A few thoughts about Cain and Bialek along the lines of CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), some musings and observations.
Yahoo reports:
// After dinner, the two were sitting in his car when she claimed he “suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals” and moved her head toward his crotch. //
Cain is in the driver’s position at the wheel, Bialek in the passenger seat. They have been talking for a while.
It is physically possible that Cain put his hand on Bialek’s leg, possibly sliding it up her leg. Reaching for her genitals from this position would be very difficult without cooperation. Bialek would have had to raise her skirt, unless she was wearing a miniskirt, which would have been provacative for this meeting.
// Bialek: I was surprised and shocked, and I said, what are you doing? You know I have a boyfriend,” Bialek recalled saying. “This is not what I came here for.” //
Bialek’s reaction was to rebuff Cain’s advance, assuming there was one. She explains in social terms that she is not available, and isn’t interested in making out. She didn’t slap Cain or immediately leave the car, things she would likely have done if she felt threatened.
It would be impossible, short of brute attack, for Cain to reach over, grab Bialek’s head, and attempt to guide her sideways and down toward his lap, missing the steering wheel, while Bialek resisted. What would be the point of that, as we can assume that Cain had his pants on? Was he going to hold Bialek’s head with one hand while he unzipped and maneuvered with his other hand? Bialek didn’t notice this.
Bialek did not leave the car after this supposed brute attack. She asked Cain to drive her home, which he did.
I infer that at worst, Cain put his hand on Bialek’s leg. The rest is a clumsy exaggeration. Bialek might have been friendly and flirty, wanting a job, and Cain misinterpreted Bialek’s demeanor. Bialek might have been angry and disappointed, receiving a sexual invitation rather than a job, if indeed she received anything.