With the big Herman Cain news today comes the right digging in and continuing the media blame game. Here’s William Jacobson, who has been painting the media as the bad guy all along:

This will all be used to justify Politico’s original reporting, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The issue never was whether the settlements or allegations of sexual harassment were fair game; I took the position at the very beginning that they were legitimate vetting issues but that the public was entitled to facts as to the allegations, not just Politico’s characterization.

Early on I also suggested that what Politico really was doing was trying to smoke out other accusers, and that in fact was the effect. We’ll never know the truth of what happened, and for most of the accusers we don’t even know their names or what the accusations were, but it worked.

Let’s go back to the original story by Politico, which is still online here. Ten days before this story came out, the reporters tried to get Cain to tell his side of the story. Instead he chose to ignore it. Finally Politico did get a response from Cain, well sort of:

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told POLITICO the candidate indicated to campaign officials that he was “vaguely familiar” with the charges and that the restaurant association’s general counsel had resolved the matter.

The latest statement came from Cain himself. In a tense sidewalk encounter Sunday morning outside the Washington bureau of CBS News — where the Republican contender had just completed an interview on “Face the Nation” — Cain evaded a series of questions about sexual harassment allegations.

Cain said he has “had thousands of people working for me” at different businesses over the years and could not comment “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.” His campaign staff was given the name of one woman who complained last week, and it was repeated to Cain on Sunday. He responded, “I am not going to comment on that.”

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

For Jacobson, an “Associate Clinical Professor at Cornell Law School”, I think he would be able to pull the facts from this.

First, the Politico article states that 2 women had accused Cain of sexual harassment. That is fact and even verified by Cain, Gordon and the NRA.

Secondly the allegations were taken serious enough that the NRA’s general council had to take care of it.

Finally, we know that the charges were serious enough that the NRA settled with the complainants in the sum of one year’s salary.

None of this is lies, rumors or innuendo, they are the actual facts that the media has uncovered. But none of this seems to matter to Jacobson. Let’s look again at what he said:

The issue never was whether the settlements or allegations of sexual harassment were fair game; I took the position at the very beginning that they were legitimate vetting issues but that the public was entitled to facts as to the allegations, not just Politico’s characterization

But fact was included in that article. J.D. Morgan admitted they were “familiar” with the allegations. That’s Cain’s BFF right there. Cain also never once rejected the claims. Instead he just said “I’m not going to comment on that”.

Apparently Jacobson believes that if one person in a story refuses to talk then the media should just let it die. Could you imagine what would happen to our fourth estate if that was the standard practice?

Politico did nothing wrong in their original reporting of this story. Actually they went out of the way to give Cain a chance to tell his side. Cain chose to ignore them. When they finally cornered Cain he didn’t take the time to deny the story or tell his side. Instead Cain went with the old “no comment”.

Since Jacobson works at a large university, I would suggest he talk to people about the media. This is how they have worked since day one. This is how they are supposed to work. His attacks against Politico are totally unjust. He is the one engaging in “hit pieces”.