Getting to the truth of the allegations against Cain no easy task

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Updated: December 9, 2011 8:23AM

Countless headlines and some 844,000 results on Google Search engine on Monday told us a “fourth accuser” had stepped forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

Except the “third accuser” never formally accused Cain but still felt it was fair to tell the AP Cain had made sexually suggestive remarks and had extended an invitation to his corporate apartment when both she and Cain were working for the National Restaurant Association.

So there are the two women who filed complaints and received settlements and a third woman who never filed a complaint and says she chooses to remain anonymous because she “fear[s] retaliation,” says the AP.

Retaliation in what sense? True, if she came forward she would lose her privacy and would become the subject of press inquiries, but where would the retaliation come from? She’d lose her job? Someone would attempt to harm her or her reputation as payback for her coming forward?

Doesn’t seem fair that Cain is named as the aggressor but his accuser gets to tell her story in the press and remain comfortably anonymous.

Never would I minimize how difficult it is for a woman who feels she’s been harassed to come forward. You sometimes hear victims of harassment say they felt as if they were violated a second time around after their accusations are made public and their reputations are impugned.

But still. If you have something to say, please step forward, and state your case.

Shouldn’t the accused have the right to face his accusers?

Of upgrades and limousine lunges

No doubt Sharon Bialek, her family and her loved ones knew their lives would change once Bialek came forward and claimed she too had been the subject of inappropriate behavior by Cain.

Publicity-heat-seeking-missile Gloria Allred was by Bialek’s side when Bialek read her statement on Monday afternoon.

Sidebar: I get a kick out of Allred. She is an awesome guest on the Roe Conn/Richard Roeper show on WLS-AM (cheap plug alert). When Allred told us it would be our worst nightmare to be locked in a room with her, it was both true and hilarious.

But geez. If you’re looking for credibility, do you really go for the Allred option? She shifts so much of the media spotlight to herself I’m not sure it helps your cause. (Case in point: Allred cracking that “Mr. Cain ... decided to try to provide [Bialek] with his idea of a stimulus package.” Groan.)

Bialek, who’s from the Chicago area and has worked in Chicago radio, said she met with Cain in Washington, D.C., in 1997 in search of a job. Cain allegedly upgraded her hotel suite, took her to dinner and then, while they were parked in Cain’s car, in Bialek’s words, Cain “suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals. He also grabbed my head and brought it towards his crotch. I was very, very surprised and shocked.”

If something like this indeed happened, it wasn’t sexual harassment in workplace; it was assault. If the actual details aren’t as physical as Bialek described, then it would fall under the category of a clumsy, piggish, unwanted pass, which unfortunately happens about a million times a week all over this planet.

As soon as Bialek stepped forward, Cain’s most ardent supporters questioned her story, her motives, her timing. On the other side, you’ve got people saying where there’s smoke, there’s fire. How many more women are going to step forward?

It’s curious that all four of these alleged incidents took place during a period of time in the 1990s, when Cain was at the NRA. Are we to believe he never engaged in any inappropriate behavior until the 1990s, and then he stopped again and cleaned up his act about a decade ago?

As for Bialek, what does she really have to gain by stepping forward? There’s no book deal or big TV payday for telling this story.

As is almost always the case with allegations of harassment, and especially so with stories of days and nights from so long ago, we’ll probably never know the real, stone-solid truth.