Wes Pruden Writes About The Media's Hatchet Job On Herman Cain

I wish Wes Pruden would come out of retirement.  We need him now.  And I don’t care if you’re registered with either major political party.  He’s a straight shooting no-nonsense journalist.  He took some time to write an excellent opinion essay in the Washington Times about what three anonymous women, the American Press Corps, and a few lawyers are doing to a serious conservative Presidential candidate.  Here it is, along with a few editorial comments of my own:

This was once a serious country with serious newspapers, back in the day when they were edius editors and a man had the right to confront an accuser before she was allowed to destroy his reputation, career and even his life.

And let’s not forget the issue of depriving the nation of the right to vote for a genuine voice of fiscal conservatism, instead of having to choose from the Diet-Obama fare on the remainder of the GOP menu.

Herman Cain doesn’t look like Jack the Ripper, but Scotland Yard never pursued Mr. Ripper with the passion of the newspapers and television networks so hot after Mr. Cain. He may be guilty of whatever it is that he is accused of — so far little more than a wink, a predatory smile or even a suggestive smirk. Or he may not be guilty. But in the wonderland of Washington journalism, we demand the verdict first and only then the evidence (if any).

Mr. Cain’s problem is that he wandered too far from the pasture of the stereotypical African-American male, who follows the braying of the Democrat Party’s leadership, which demands that all truly black Americans lean to the political left.  Step out of line, dare to think and talk like a money-savvy businessman, and this is what happens to you.  You’re a bad apple in the barrel.  And bad apples must go into the trash bin.

“Sexual harassment” has been established as a crime that only the accuser is entitled to define, and then at her attorney’s convenience. The accused is not necessarily entitled to know who accuses him or even to know what he is accused of doing. The crime is so heinous that the mere accusation is enough to convict. Why waste time on evidence?

And even if a man is fully exonerated, the very idea of the accusation is so ugly that the excremental stain on his clothing can never be washed clean.

Politico, the political daily of liberal pedigree that set the hounds on Mr. Cain, has not said what he is guilty of, or when, or where, or who says so. Innuendo is enough. Politico says it has a half-dozen sources “shedding light on different aspects of the complaints.” Once upon a time, a reporter trying to get a story merely “shedding light” on “aspects” past a gruff old city editor would have been thrown down the stairs if the gruff old city editor was having a particularly bad day.

And rightly so.  Just as a cop trying to get a case filed in a district attorney’s office without suffcient evidence should be tossed out the door and told to come back when he’s got a real case.

The more sensational the story, the more skeptical the editors ought to be. Newspapers traditionally withheld the name of a rape victim, for example, but if the man was acquitted of the crime, the purported victim was then identified. Rape, alas, is not regarded as a crime as serious as sexual harassment. The new rules hold that women are the equal of men, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto, except when it’s more convenient to be “the little woman.”

Indeed.  For rape, a man goes to prison.  For an accusation of sexual harassment, he’s left to wander about in the free world as an outcast – unles he’s a political leftist like Bill Clinton.  Clinton’s a rock star in the eyes of America’s Press Corps and his fellow Democrats.  What he did with and to Monica Lewinsky, not to mention what he was credibly accused of doing to Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broddrick, is far beyond anything we can heretofore imagine of which Herman Cain may stand accused.  Did any of that keep Clinton from re-election? 

But, we really don’t know what Mr. Cain is accused of, because no hard evidence of anything, in the form of affidavit, lawsuit, or indictment, has been presented.  You see, until an accuser is put under oath, to which criminal penalties attach for lying, it’s all excrement, ladies and gentlemen.  You can say anything you want to say ’til you’re put into the position where telling a lie can put you into prison for perjury.  Nonetheless, Cain is covered in steaming excrement, thrown by anonymous accusers and the gallant American Press Corps.  Bravo!  Mission accomplished.  Keep the black conservative man off that Presidential ballot.  Show him his proper place for daring to think for himself.

The most unlikely ladies want to be “the little woman.” In one celebrated complaint, a three-star general of the U.S. Army got a male colleague, a mere two-star, cashiered for touching her “in a sexual way” and trying to steal a kiss. Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy said nothing at the time, holding her fire until ready, and she was ready several years later, when the man who had offended her was up for promotion. Nothing shrinks a man’s passion, even for patting a bottom or stealing a kiss, quicker than a firm and furious rebuff from the lady. The delicate lady general retired, satisfied, to the rank of Miss, never aspiring to be remembered as Stonewall Jackson or George S. Patton.

And what a propitious time to drop this load of you-know-what on Cain and the American people.  Just as he’s surging in the polls and popularity.  He’s stealing Romney’s and Perry’s thunder by telling it straight.   He’s in a position to save the nation from the covert communist revolution that put this Obama crew into power.  And the leftist media are not going to allow that to happen.  Black conservative man’s gotta go.  Trash him.

Like the “he said-she said” skirmish between the generals, the accusations against Herman Cain have smelled from the beginning, The case against Mr. Cain smells like an exercise manipulated by one of his rivals for the Republican nomination. The Cain camp’s blaming Rick Perry, whose campaign then blamed Mitt Romney, was about par for inexperienced newcomers to a presidential campaign. As a third woman emerged to say she was offended, or shocked, or affronted by something Mr. Cain said or did at a dinner party, descent into a circus was inevitable.

Say it ain’t so, Wes.  Would a RINO who’s falling behind Herman Cain engineer something like this?  I gotta lay down.

Neither Mr. Cain nor his accusers seem to want to waive confidentiality and let the record of settlements with the accusers at the National Restaurant Association be opened to public review. For their part, the accusers and their attorneys continue to get good mileage out of anonymous hints and intimations. The Cain campaign is reluctant to feed fuel to the fire, tempted to think the episode will recede into another news cycle.

Why respond to accusations when you don’t even know what you’re accused of – specifically?  That means dates, times and places – and don’t forget independent witnesses, if there are any.

The Republican establishment clearly wishes Herman Cain would go away and let Mitt Romney, whoever he is or turns out to be, get on with the coronation. But the natives in the grassy reeds and roots are restless, and the Republican establishment has yet to figure out how to deal with peasants newly empowered by Facebook, YouTube, tweets and other novelties and toys of the Internet.

You bet the natives are restless.  We became restless when the Repubs nominated John McCain, setting the table for Mr. Obama’s ascendancy.

A new Rasmussen poll of Republican voters nationwide, taken Wednesday night, shows Mr. Cain leading Mr. Romney 26 percent to 23 percent, and he has opened a wider lead in South Carolina in a poll taken two days after Politico set off the carnival of allusion and implication. He’s not dead yet.

Amen, brother Wes.  And neither are we, who are waiting for the accusers to come forward and face the accused with their evidence.