By now you certainly heard of the big Politico piece that came out last night stating that Herman Cain was accused of sexual harassment while he was head of the National Restaurant Association. If not, head over there and read the piece now.

Just now Cain said he was “falsely accused” of sexual  while working for the group. That’s a rather interesting statement given this part from the Politico piece:

In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range.

What strikes me as interesting here is that they offered one of the women a rather lucrative separation package. That shouldn’t happen if the accusations were lies and leaves a lot more questions than answers into Cain’s past. In fact Cain’s latest statement in no way denies or discredits the initial report by Politico.

This is Cain’s first test of a 3am moment and so far he has failed miserably. It started earlier and again I cite the Politico piece:

He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”

He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”

This goes beyond the what the “definition of is is”. Cain’s response makes it sound as though being accused of sexual harassment is something very common, even to someone low on the totem pole like a reporter.

Another failure in his response came from his campaign last night, when spokesman J.D. Gordon had this to say:

Dredging up thinly sourced allegations stemming from Mr. Cain’s tenure as the Chief Executive Officer at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts.

Since Washington establishment critics haven’t had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain’s ideas to fix a bad economy and create jobs, they are trying to attack him in any way they can.

Sadly, we’ve seen this movie played out before – a prominent Conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics.

Apparently the Cain campaign is as shielded from the news as George Bush was during Katrina. It hasn’t taken the media or left to attack Cain’s economic plans, plenty on the right have done the same thing. Then we also see the typical strawman of the right, the “liberal” media. That’s rather astonishing given that this comes from Politico. As matter of fact the main author of the article was Jonathon Martin, who did a lot of his teeth cutting at the National Review, you know that publication started by William Buckley? If that’s liberal then Bernie Sanders is so far to the right that he has to yell to talk to Ann Coulter.

What we are seeing is that Mr. Cain has a very questionable past and he also doesn’t know how to handle the scrutiny. How long before he really cracks? With every response digging him deeper than the last, I would have to say it’s coming soon.