Did Rahm Emanuel Leak Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Allegations?

Image Credit: Cheryl Casey / Shutterstock.com

Cardboard pizza kingpin and GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain is trying his damnedest to get ahead of recent reports of sexual harassment against him while he was head of the National Restaurant Association. Now it appears as though Cain has taken a "see what sticks" approach to fighting the claims.

The New York Times reported Cain accusing Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign of leaking the story. A Perry campaign spokesman called Cain's charges "reckless and false."

The Washington Times, which is just to the right of Fox News on the fair and balanced scale, has added Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's name to the mix. They quote a source close to the Cain campaign as saying an employee in the National Restaurant Association's Chicago office may have been influenced by Emanuel to leak the story to the Perry camp.

Perry advisor Curt Anderson, who Cain's camp is accusing of leaking the claims, denies any responsibility.

"I’ve known Herman Cain for about 7 years. I was one of several consultants on his Senate race in 2004 and was proud to help him. I'd never heard any of these allegations until I read them in Politico, nor does anything I read in the press change my opinion that Herman is an upstanding man and a gentleman. I have great respect for Herman and his character and I would never speak ill of him, on the record or off the record. That's true today and it's not going to change."

Although neither the Perry nor Cain campaigns has been ready for prime time, the surfacing of Emanuel's name is curious mainly for his ties to the Obama administration as the President's former Chief of Staff. Though Emanuel has put on a happy face since being elected Chicago's mayor, his reputation for getting dirty politically when necessary does precede him. We wouldn't be surprised to see the narrative in the Cain story shift so that it implicates Obama, regardless of the degrees of separation.

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By Chuck Sudo in News on November 3, 2011 10:40 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Deborah

Are you sure Rahm Emanual is an american? This guy is more like a spy and a dictator. I believe he leaked information on Cain just as he runs the city like a Gestapo. He is another Fidal Castro, Lenin, Kruschoff and the rest. I don;t care for this cain guy but I am getting sick of Emanual. He is making a really bad name for the Jews who are already hated so much.

remyngtin

typical knee jerk reactions from the Liberal lowlifes

blipsman

It was Quaxelrod...

Navin_Johnson

Cain is a comedic genius:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

ANGRYGOD11

Why blame the politicians? Couldn't the leak just as well come from the victims or their families or friends as a legal settlement is on the public record? It only takes a single phone call to the press.

seattlesnow

typical alpha black male, must make every bitch that cross his path his bitch... thats is what I get from this article

BlueFairlane

You're from New York, aren't you?

seattlesnow

yes I'm in the Eastern Standard Time Zone but I got a great burger in Lincoln Park that I discovered via Chicagoist

remyngtin

Cain vs affirmative action president.... interesting

alexalexalexalexalex

Idiot

MmmCashews

agreed! Obama actually lost conservative strongholds like Virginia and North Carolina but due to affirmative action laws they boosted his votes 5%.

ReverendSlappy

affirmative action president

Mmmhmm. That's what he is. ::rolls eyes::

interesting

Not to people with brains.

marco_esquandolas

Rahm Emanuel? No.

Karl Rove? More than likely.

Mimihaha

I agree with ktinnyc and the Rev. There's no way a Democratic operative leaked this. It had to come from the mainstream GOP.

sat3911

Rahm would have saved it for next October unless they think Obama has a better chance against Romney.

Guest

I thought we stopped caring about this stuff after a President fucked an intern many years his junior with a cigar while they were in the Oval Office.

Rosemary_Woodhouse

Though not a great Presidential moment, I'm pretty sure consensual sex is different than sexual harassment.

cheesenpeas

You must be new around here.

ChicagoD

Didn't that guy get impeached? It seems like someone cared about it at the time. Oh yeah. Some of the same people currently running for President.

Nicholas

If Mayor Rahm DID drop a dime on Cain, I say "Bravo!" Cain is a clown and totally unqualified for the office he seeks. If Mayor Rahm has any hand in ending this farce, it is a good thing.

ktinnyc

Why would Rahm want to damage Herman Cain? Anyone in the Democratic Party would want Herman Cain to be the Republican's candidate for President. It would be the greatest gift I could think of.

ReverendSlappy

IMO, all signs point to the "leak" (if that's even really what it is) coming from the GOP establishment. Romney is their guy, and Cain has been polling well enough that they wanted to knock him down a few notches. My theory.

My other pet theory is that Cain isn't really running for President; instead, his motivation is simply to boost his profile so he can make more money from lectures, books, tv/radio appearances, etc. He has no ground organization in any states, let alone the most important ones, his message is clearly off-the-cuff, on-the-fly nonsense that he himself apparently doesn't fully understand, and it's just not apparent (to me, anyway) that he really gives a shit about the fact that pretty much everything he's doing virtually guarantees he'd lose the general election. It's a sideshow, not presidential politics.

Of course, that's mostly what the GOP is today: theater.

fergmelk

IMHO, it's *all* theater anymore.

113121

I totally agree. It's Cain himself. If he was smart enough to sell himself his own books using election contributions he's smart enough to get more contributions with this con. First, he's "tired" and slowing down his campaign and then "It's a high-tech lynching!" I've met his supporters and they are just loving his brand.Hilarious in a sad way.

airtech1

Whose brand --- on either side of the political spectrum -- ISN'T hilarious.

alexalexalexalexalex

That's very Fair And Balanced of you.

ReverendSlappy

One is quite a bit more hilarious than the other. Quite a bit.

airtech1

The notion of brand, brand ambassadors, and brand evangelists is hilarious.

ChicagoD

My pet theory is that after he loses the election Cain will pull off a mask and we'll realize it was all an overly elaborate real estate scheme. He would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for Rahm.

monkeyrotica

If Rahm Emanuel wants to take a leak on Herman Cain, that's their business. They're consenting adults and urolagnia fetishists. Leave them alone in their pee!

Guest

No pics of the accusers? Anyhow, if they're white AND even remotely attractive, I would say it's time for Herman to pack his bags....

ANGRYGOD11

The accusers signed nondisclosure agreements to settle the case for compensation. They violate any settlements by going public and could face a lawsuit.

ChicagoD

Yes, but if they are involuntarily outed . . . all bets are off.

ANGRYGOD11

They haven't been outed, yet.

ReverendSlappy

This guy -- this guy, a motivational speaker and talk radio show host and apparent all around assclown -- is currently leading the GOP polls and could very well win the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina primary.

Tells ya all you need to know about the joke the Republican Party has become. All ya need to know.

BlueFairlane

See? They just really don't like Romney.

ReverendSlappy

I guess they really mustn't.

I mean I still just can't envision them nominating anybody other than Romney. But Cain really could win Iowa, and he's polling really, really well in South Carolina. If he wins both those two, what happens next?

If he isn't hurt by the harassment issue (and so far, it looks like his poll numbers have largely held), this could turn out to be a real hoot.

Kevin_Robinson

If he wins both those two, what happens next?

We stick a fork in the GOP, because the party, as we know it, is done for.

ChicagoD

Cain is a fucking disaster. Spending his time arguing who "leaked" the claims instead of being able to deny the claims means that . . . he is a sexual harasser. The rest is all details.

AndrewInDC

Um, he did deny the claims. Right off the bat. Are you asking him to prove a negative? Cause we could be here a while.

As for arguing over where it came from: Eh. If someone called me a murderer but couldn't produce a body or substantiate the claim in any way, I'd kinda want to know who was accusing me of such things and why. Certainly asking the question doesn't imply my guilt - neither does it exonerate me. But hey, if you want to find causation in two independent activities, then I'm going to assert that running the football leads to lower unemployment.