I’m going to have to step out and disagree with Ken on this one. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman. Here’s yet another man in power, who got away with whatever it was, by handing out a bribe that to him (or his backers) was petty cash, but to the women at least meant they could get out of the situation. Then of course there is the non-disclosure agreements, so they could never speak of it again. Which meant that other women, either in that organization, or another, are left feeling that they are alone, or have no recourse.
Our friend Ana has written about the problems of non-disclosure clauses to society in environmental cases. Paying a few $$$$ to limit a persons (and their families) freedom of speech allows bad practices to continue, and allows the perpetrators to continue to deny there are problems.
I’m sorry, but I worked in a “men’s club” for several decades, and it’s no fun. It was worse before we had successful legal action against harassment and the development of standards and policies, but believe me it’s still no picnic.
My biggest beef with Cain is that he’s more worried about who outed him, than he is about being truly regretful of his bad behavior. No Mr. Cain – your rhetoric should not be “poor me, someone’s running a smear campaign”. The fact that you lied and tried to deny these allegations tells me you are not an honest, respectable man.
The difference with Clinton and some of the other men (why is it always men?) who have crashed and burned, is that this is unwanted sexual advances. Monica never claimed harassment. Nor did whoever Wiener sent his wiener pictures too. Disreputable behavior – definitely. However, they were already in office, and the price of the brouhaha and the cost of replacing them was more than the country needed.
If this kind of behavior was not accepted by men, and tolerated by women, perhaps we could get past it. I personally really regret the loss of Eliot Spitzer, and I would not be surprised if his downfall was helped along by some of the Wall St people he was exposing, but still he followed his nether parts into trouble. Which caused a lot of hurt and anxiety for himself, NYS and more than I think most men can imagine for his wife and family.
Actually, Joyce, I agree with everything you wrote. I neither condone the behavior, or agree they should shut up. My problem is this: do we live under a guilty until proven innocent system or not? Also we have agreed as a society, by whatever means, to live under this system. I don’t like it. We need to change it.
Then we turn around and when it’s politically expedient we use these issues against others as if guilt is assumed by accusation.
That’s why I wrote that edition of Inspection. There are wider issues here that go to how we treat these things, legally. If we ever expect women to get justice in these matters we need to fix the system first. Letting that slide then using it when it’s politically expedient is almost as despicable as the behavior itself. That’s not attacking the women, it’s attacking those who wait in the bushes (no sexual reference intended) to bushwhack candidates years after the events, or after the issue has been settled. Now sometimes I admit it certainly seems like they kind of deserve the bushwhacking, but that’s kind of like the woman who walks in a miniskirt in the worst part of town just as the bars closed and acts seductively towards her rapist, but then says “no.” Results kind of expected? Why, yes. But does that mean she “deserved it,” or there was any righteousness to the rape? Hell, no.
This is about the wider picture, as I already typed: how we treat such issues as a society and in our justice system. Plus, if we made that all more fair, and both kinds of behavior unacceptable, maybe we could get back to the issues we need to be discussing. Instead we bog down in an old he said, she saids, a justice system that makes it all worse and political manipulators willing to use such for gain.
We either treat these issues fairly for all, or we all suffer the consequences, innocent and the guilty. In my opinion we are suffering the consequences: over and over again.
I don’t agree it’s a “woman thing” when it comes to the points I’m trying to make. If we did this right women would get justice and men would stop. Instead we have gag orders, “she deserved it” nonsense and then dragging it all out in the open again when it’s politically convenient. When the dragging is unjust, and I’m not saying it is in this case, isn’t that a kind of rape of reputation by accusation?
Cain may have “gotten away with something…” true. But I view it like OJ. Sorry folks, no matter how unjust, this is how it was settled. I don’t like it. You don’t like it. But that’s not the point. The point is Cain was never found guilty of these crimes. That may be a travesty, and the system that allowed that a joke, but that’s the system we have. I suggest changing it. Going after someone for something he was never found guilty of that has been through the justice system is wrong, IMO. The system needs to be changed instead. Otherwise what might be grand for the guilty goose will not serve the innocent gander, except as a main meal for those willing to abuse the system for personal and political gain.
That’s disgusting and serves no one except manipulators for political gain, who if you think about it have some of the same power issues as rapists. They’re just raping society as a whole.
Let me add an addendum to my two comments on both posts. I felt the Church itself should have been prosecuted for that nonsense, as well as the priests. But we have to remember that all they did was deny, deny, deny. To this day I this they should be prosecuted. However discipline, as much as I hate it in these cases, within any church is up to the hierarchy. Not you. Not me. No one else.
Can they be prosecuted for that when it went as far as it did? Sure can and should have been. It wasn’t.
To state the obvious again: running for public office is a bit different that becoming a priest or a minister. You may have Karl Roves out there in the Catholic Church, for sure, but that’s inner discipline.
Now if a Catholic priest were running for the president and a Karl Rove-like character, or his opponent, brought up charges the general public really had never heard before I wouldn’t care in the same sense because they are obviously politically driven. I obviously care a lot about kids, but I don’t think we should be rewarding that kind of politics, as much as what I am about to type pains me: no matter which side is being beaten down, or how just the beat down may be. Why? Because the process becomes endless. You get what you have today and during Clinton: maybe a few true charges, a lot of false charges, ludicrous charges, stuff just made up and damnable lies. Politics by slander and libel needs to be stopped because it masks real issues and even real charges/offenses. It becomes what we have today: candidates too often winning and taking control of the debate by being the worst possible people. Those we should never let lord over us: who can lie the most, who can destroy the reputation of whomever stands in their way.
And do we really want to consistently reward those who can’t win debating the issues so they decide they will say anything, make any claim, that distracts us from those debates… politics by smear? Hell, we might as well go ahead and give Ann Coulter the presidency if that’s what we want.