Herman Cain: Guilty or Not Guilty?

and Why Does it Matter?

False accusations should be punishable by law.

Herman Cain Suspends Campaign

 

Two Possibilities

The recent attacks on Herman Cain, the swiftness of his “trial” by media, and his rapid exit from the Republican presidential primary race have left many bewildered.  There lingers an uneasiness, as though a lynching had just occurred, and nobody objected.

There are two possibilities; that Herman Cain is guilty of recent accusations of sexual harassment and marital infidelity, or that he is innocent of these accusations.  We simply do not know which is the case.

If Cain were guilty, that would be unfortunate. His moral integrity would certainly be blemished.  However, to be fair, it must be pointed out that similar issues did not get in the way of Gingrich’s, Clinton’s, or JFK’s public careers.  In a society that has just removed the ban on bestiality in the military, with the White House laughingly declining to comment, surely Herman Cain’s weakness would not be as staggering as such transgressions might have been in the past?

Gingrich, Clinton, JFK

If Cain were innocent, however, then the extent of the coordinated slanderous attack on Cain would be historically significant and unnerving.  If President Obama’s campaign was prepared to coordinate such a vicious and fallacious attack on an opposing candidate, that really would make a story dwarfing other stories of political ethical misconduct, including Watergate and the more recent Blagojevich affair.

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