3rd Accuser Talking About Cain; Says She Was Invited Up To His Corporate Apartment

Still no names and no details.

Beyond this little bit, I mean: AP: "She says the behavior included a private invitation to his corporate apartment."

This is still all Eye of the Beholder stuff. The stuff alleged, so far, isn't definite come-ons. It's stuff someone could take as a come-on, but that doesn't mean Cain intended it as a come-on.

The next level of question is "When is a come-on objectionable?" Sure, he was married. But as far as "sexual harassment" -- well, that would mean more than a come-on, wouldn't it?

Unless the behavior is provable and definitely more than merely being uncomfortable, or unless a whole string of women offer up similar complaints, I suppose he can survive.

A short AP piece has now been published. It doesn't offer anything more, except to say that Cain made unwelcome comments about her appearance. (And the private apartment invite thing.)

She considered filing a sexual harassment claim -- but did not. So in her own mind this was not at that threshold of seriousness.

The problem here is that I just don't consider all awkward moments a cause of action, but I know that some feminists do, and so does the media, at least when the alleged cause of the awkwardness has an R after his name.

If you're a Democrat, you can chat up sixteen year old girls on Twitter, no problem.

I'm beginning to wonder if there's any there there. At some point this is going to have to get more serious or I'm going to need it to go away.

I have suspected this would become serious. I still sort of do. But if it's going to be this kind of a thing, these minor bits of social discomfort, well.

I actually do believe that there is such a thing as sexual harassment. But it has to be actual harassment. Not just this sort of "I felt awkward" stuff.

The old joke about sexual harassment is that it's sexual harassment when the woman doesn't dig the guy. If she does dig the guy, it's a date.

I need this to move away from that joke area if I'm going to bother covering it. Either he did something not just awkward but bullying -- something I can say is objectively bad, an attempt to harm someone, or not caring if they're harmed. To actually leverage power into coercion.

Not just "he thought I was cute and that wigged me out because, ew."

Meanwhile, Cain has changed his media-handling tactics, and now is refusing to answer questions on the matter.

posted by Ace at 04:05 PM

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