The Anchoress
This video by the Daily Caller is one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen, from start to finish.
Just take in the following:
The glaring whiteness of the room; all the privileged whitefolk rubbing elbows and throwing back a few drinks.
Begin by noticing that Michelle Fields is covering a party for the launch of Chris Matthews’ latest book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, and the fact that the lionized Kennedy was a known womanizer, and a guy who believed in um, lowering taxes.
They love the guy. Lots of slightly slurred hero-worship of a politician whose three year presidency and dramatic death began a romance between their generation and high drama that continues to this day, and probably has a great deal to do with an inexperienced, secretive, present-voting, elegant Rorschach test residing in the Oval Office, today, and the hyper-glamorization of OWS.
Fields first interview is with the legendary Bob Woodward, who — when asked about the big “someone said they heard someone else say something about Herman Cain and it’s sexy but nobody actually knows anything” story — declares that the subject “is a serious one”. More interesting to me: When asked whether he has any advice for Cain, Woodward says, “journalists shouldn’t give advice!”
A memo the journo-listers apparently never received.
Then it ‘s on to the other legend, Ben Bradlee, who also seems to have had a couple of drinks (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and immediately puts his arm around the pretty young Fields. Nothing sexual, of course. It’s not harassment! He’s just trying to hear her better in a crowded, noisy room, and being the avuncular old lion encouraging a youngster. Right? He gasses on about how much he loves Kennedy, too, and then when Fields ask “what about the allegations against Herman Cain,” Bradlee puts that avuncular hand on young Fields’ shoulder and says chummily, “I think he’s got it coming to him, doesn’t he?”
Let’s put aside the fact that no one yet knows anything, for sure, re the Cain allegations. “He’s got it coming,” for some reason.
I wonder if all Cain did was comparable to what Ben Bradlee did here: had a few drinks, stood a little too close — the better to hear, my dear — used the encouraging arm, put the hand on a woman’s shoulder. Maybe he was just steadying himself.
I could see it making a young woman uncomfortable, for sure. When I was a young woman, I never appreciated an older guy’s hand on my shoulder, at my back or on my waist. And post the Thomas-Hill debacle, women didn’t stand still for it or endure it the way we did in the 1970’s and 1980’s. And that’s a good thing.
In the 1990’s, women became vaporish and victimized over risque jokes, though. An over-correction.
Bradlee, unlike Woodward, has no problem with giving advice to Cain, “run for the roundhouse,” which I think means one can’t be cornered, there.
I don’t know what “he’s got it coming” means. Perhaps Bradlee knows more than everyone else? Perhaps he’s projecting on to Cain all the woman-abusing sins he’s observed in DC over all the years, when he was palling around with oh, Ted Kennedy and the like?
Anyway, I thought it was all very interesting. Your mileage may vary. Seems The Main Point had the same thought I did.
Insty has a huge new Cain roundup.
I agree, btw that the NRA should release everything. The man’s running for president, after all. We should know the story. I want to see if any of it rises to the level of genuine sexual harassment or abuse.
Related:
WaPo: Cain still Rising Unexpectedly! I wonder if people have just finally bought the notion that “this stuff doesn’t matter” that we heard during the Clinton years.
Ed Morrissey: some good analysis
Former NRA Chairman: it’s a hatchet job!
Gingrich: “Gossip”
Double-standards?: But of course.
Rahm: a connection?(not sure I buy)
O/T but Interesting
Also O/T: Can you imagine how big this story would be, if Obama didn’t have a D after his name?
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