Politico’s Cain-Hit Non-Story

When I read news stories I expect to learn who, what, when, where, why, and how. Politico, an online political “news” outlet, is notorious for getting about 2 1/2 of the 5 w’s and an h, without corroboration. In fact, nobody really knows if they make half their stuff up.

The big news today is that of making two women uncomfortable, supposedly, according to sources that may or may not exist. I’m not kidding, let me sum up the story.

Two women complained of inappropriate behavior by Cain in the 1990′s when he was the head of the National Restaurant Association.

The complaints were of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, including “conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices. There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable..” they signed legal papers that barred them from talking about the allegations they brought, and were paid a 5-figure financial severance.

Politico will not publish the names of the women.

When confronted by reporters, Cain responded that he did not know who was involved in such complaints, and clearly was perturbed at reporters for alleging he was involved in any sexual harassment.

Politico admits the cases involving the women were formally resolved by the Restaurant Association.

That’s the story. But for Politico, three more pages are filled with redundancy and unnamed sources.

The named people in the story are Herman Cain and his spokesman, and the Restaurant Association legal counsel who made it clear, twice in the story, that personnel matters cannot be discussed. That is a proverbial brick wall, but for Politico, the fun rumor mill, and innuendo and possible damn lies go on for 4 pages. Others worth naming in the story declined to comment, except to say that Herman Cain is gracious, extremely professional, fair, treated women and men identically, unwanted advances are “not within his character,” that they, as high-ranking National Restaurant Association board members never heard any complaints. In fact, many of the comments are corroborated by other people who knew Cain at the time. The rest of the the sources involved in leveling the charge are introduced thusly:

One source closely familiar with Cain’s tenure
two additional sources
former board member
A second source with close ties to the restaurant association
A third source said..
a source familiar with the association
at least one campaign staffer
according to a source who was at the event
the source said the board member said..

The whole story is a non-story and comes at a time when Cain is leading in many polls, and the National Restaurant Association is looking for ways to boost his campaign. Any or all of these accusations could be non-factual, based on the highly-charged political debate. But, thanks to Politico’s Johnathan Martin and Maggie Haberman and Anna Palmer and Kenneth P. Vogel and Juana Summers and Emily Schultheis, (ya know, with that many crack reporters, you’d think you could come up with some names) it is big news for the media and other camps to feast upon.