It is ABOUT TIME a Republican defended himself

My comment about this: GOOD

I am SO sick and tired of seeing Democrats and RINOs getting free shots at Conservatives.AS a Law Enforcer, I learned early in that a majority of people only obey rules and laws when there is a big hammer waiting to come down on them if they fail to comply

 

 

Cain’s Lawyer on Accusing: ‘Think Twice’

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/us/politics/cains-lawyer-on-accusing-think-twice.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

L. Lin Wood, the lawyer hired by the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to fend off sexual harassment accusations, has warned that any other women who might be considering coming forward with similar allegations “should think twice.”

On Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after Karen Kraushaar identified herself as one of two women who had received monetary settlements relating to harassment allegations against Mr. Cain while working for the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s, Ms. Kraushaar faced questions about a workplace complaint she filed at a subsequent job, at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Hours later, Rush Limbaugh seized on that report to argue that Ms. Kraushaar has “a pattern of whining.”

And when another accuser, Sharon Bialek — whose last name Mr. Limbaugh has pronounced as “buy-a-lick”— appeared Wednesday on MSNBC, she faced fresh inquiries about her troubled financial history, which had been documented and publicized by Mr. Cain’s campaign under the heading, “Who Is Sharon Bialek?”
As Ms. Kraushaar continued her day-old effort to bring the other women accusing Mr. Cain of sexual harassment together for a joint news briefing, she and the others confronted the challenges of taking on a presidential candidate: intensive scrutiny of their backgrounds and motives, encouraged and amplified in this case by conservative news outlets and commentators whose support for Mr. Cain as he battles the allegations has helped him weather the crisis so far.
Ms. Kraushaar told friends she was beginning to worry that all the scrutiny might keep the other women from appearing publicly with her.
As of early Wednesday evening, she had not heard directly from Ms. Bialek. But Ms. Bialek’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said she was willing to be part of a joint news conference. Nor had Ms. Kraushaar heard from another woman who received a settlement from the association after complaining of inappropriate advances from Mr. Cain and whose complaint against him is described by people familiar with it as among the most serious.
Keeping her own low profile on Wednesday, Ms. Kraushaar said in a brief statement to The New York Times, “Anyone should be able to report allegations of sexual harassment without fear that their lives and careers will be put on public display and laid open to public scrutiny.”
But with polls showing Mr. Cain still running at or near the front of the Republican pack and some conservatives seeing the accusations as an effort to halt his candidacy, the pressure on the accusers and the accused was intense.
Throughout the day, the political world watched to see if Ms. Kraushaar’s effort to present a united front with the other women would succeed in putting more details and possibly one or two more names behind the allegations — or if he and his supporters would undermine their credibility, keep them from making more public claims against him and proceed with his campaign.
Even as some Republican Party elders continued to criticize his handling of the accusations, Mr. Cain benefited from the support of conservative-leaning commentators and news outlets, helping him to raise money. He drew warm applause at the CNBC debate Wednesday in Michigan when he dismissed the accusations, saying, “The American people deserve better.”
The Drudge Report noted that Ms. Bialek had lived in the same building as David Axelrod, President Obama’s political strategist, and said that Ms. Kraushaar “works for Obama.” (A spokeswoman at the Treasury Department in a nonpolitical job, Ms. Kraushaar was also a spokeswoman in the immigration service under President George W. Bush.)

In The New York Post on Tuesday, the columnist Andrea Peyser called Ms. Bialek a “gold digger” who “flirted like a tart” with Mr. Cain. And Mr. Limbaugh amplified the accounts of Ms. Bialek’s financial troubles and the story, first reported on Wednesday by The Associated Press, about Ms. Kraushaar’s workplace complaint at the immigration service.
“What are these babes going to do with a panel?” Mr. Limbaugh said of Ms. Kraushaar’s proposed news briefing. “What does it prove?”
Mr. Cain’s campaign said that Mr. Wood’s services included not only legal representation, but also a research team, and that it had hired another crisis management public relations expert, though it declined to name this person.
Speaking with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mr. Wood, who is based in Atlanta, said Mr. Cain would consider legal action against other accusers, though he did not announce any actual plans to do so.
“I’m not here to scare anyone off,” Mr. Wood said, in the same interview when he warned new accusers to “think twice,” adding, “I’ve been brought in to bring an element of fairness to the accusations being brought.”
Mr. Wood has a national reputation as an aggressive advocate, having represented the family of JonBenet Ramsey and the N.B.A. star Kobe Bryant in his sexual assault case in 2004, which was settled.

Ms. Allred, who represents Ms. Bialek and has her own national reputation for representing women in high-profile sexual harassment cases, said she had prepared her client for criticism, but accused the Cain campaign of taking a “scorched-earth” approach. ( A slam for defending himself)
“He’s got millions of dollars to spend on investigators, high priced attorneys, P.R. people, political operatives, you name it, he can spend it to get what he needs to basically get the high-priced weapons of war ready and aimed at our clients,” Ms. Allred said. “The women we represent don’t have those kinds of resources, and that makes their willingness to speak out all the more heroic.”

Ms. Allred said Ms. Bialek — a former employee of the restaurant association’s education foundation who said Mr. Cain effectively offered to help her find a new job in return for sex, making a rough physical advance in the process — was not bowed by the criticism that had come her way. Much of the scrutiny has been focused on two bankruptcies in her past and a series of debts. (Ms. Bialek has said she is not seeking money to tell her story, though she has not ruled out a book at some point.)

Joel P. Bennett, the lawyer for Ms. Kraushaar, said she, too, was prepared for scrutiny, adding that her job as a spokeswoman for the inspector general for tax administration at the Treasury Department prepared her well.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Ms. Kraushaar made a complaint at some point in 2002 or 2003 that supervisors at the Immigration and Naturalization Service were unfairly refusing to let her work from home after she was injured in a car accident, and that she had also complained about a sexually suggestive e-mail a supervisor circulated about the differences between men and women. It reported that she had requested a cash settlement, a promotion and leave time, but ultimately dropped the matter.

Mr. Bennett, who also represented her in that case, refused to comment on it, but questioned its significance, noting that in court cases generally, “If you file a complaint against employer X, and filed a complaint five years ago against employer Y, that’s not considered relevant.”
Mr. Bennett said late Wednesday that even if Ms. Kraushaar enlisted only Ms. Bialek for her briefing, she would go forward nonetheless.


Susan Saulny, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting