Yes, this post is in part about Herman Cain, but before we get there, let me lay some groundwork, then do some backtracking and finally attempt to obfuscate the truth. Well maybe, not necessarily in that order. Let’s start with the obfuscation first. Anne was sent to in-school suspension (ISS) this week, twice. Talk about bad behavior. In truth, she was the teacher that was administering ISS, so she really didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t deserve the punishment of having to run ISS. I just point this out, in some lame attempt to divert the reader from the theme of this post.
Tuesday went down at work as Politically Incorrect Tuesday (PIT). The Boss was out of the office. The office’s few women were also out for the day. Into these highly inflammable conditions, Ken innocently brought in rum-balls that his wife had made to celebrate his birthday. Covered in coconut, they were delicious. Unfortunately, they quick drew allusions to Alec Baldwin’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit, “Schweddy Balls”, a funny and oft riffed-on skit. I like SNL, but I often find that they take a joke and then run it into the ground. A skit that would best be concluded after a minute or two is often dragged out for five minutes or more. Try dragging out the joke for eight hours, because that is how long the jokes about Ken’s balls lasted.
After PIT Tuesday came Legal Action Wednesday (LAW). The first sign that something was up came from above. It was the pitter-patter sound of men in combat boots stomping across the roof. I thought that it was the roofers. They’ve been up there for months. Then there came the explosion of glass, as the commandoes from HR Team 6, rappelled through the windows. Someone killed the lights. The background noise of unintelligible shouts was punctuated by the staccato sound of automatic weapons fire. I chewed the carpet. They had come to cuff us and stuff us. The radio alarm clock went off next, waking me Thursday morning.
While my experience with men behaving badly was just the stuff of dreams, for Mr. Cain, his experience has been more akin to a nightmare. His situation is not the junior high grab-ass that I describe above, where it is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Women are coming forward with serious charges, made even more serious by his candidacy for the White House. In Cain’s defense, he is being tried in the press. The court of public opinion offers the accused no special protections. Guilty or innocent, part of Cain’s problem is other politician’s past sins. No one is accusing him of texting crotch shots to strangers or impregnating the housekeeper. Part of the reason that the press has Herman squirming is the history of his fellow politicians. He is being found guilty by association; association with men who share little with his political philosophy. I’m not suggesting that any women should go out on a date with the man. I’m not even suggesting that you should vote for the man, but before you condemn the man shouldn’t you wait for all of the facts of the case to come to light?