UPDATE III: 5:05pm Eastern:  Herman Cain spent the 4pm-5pm hour with Sean Hannity on the radio.  The one question I really wanted asked was ‘Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?’. Hannity didn’t ask it. Ok… but you know what?  I’m ‘hiring’ Herman based on his character and trustworthiness.  I’m one of those knuckle-draggers who believes that if you lie to your wife you’ll lie to your country.  Call me quaint but I believe it.  Herman gave a good interview, and I’m comforted by it, and my support remains solid… but I’d really like an answer to that question.

UPDATE II 2:22pm Eastern:  Evidently Gloria Berger-Meister-Meister-Burger over at CNN has MORE vicious slander about someone who alleges no touching, no sex, no skin, nothing even remotely substantial, crashing on Herman’s couch once… Uh-huh.  I guess because she’s female and white this is significant?  

UPDATE, THU 9:25am Eastern: I’ve been watching/listening/reading media for three hours since I wrote this around dawn this morning, and not seen ANYONE with analysis like this on the big stage ANYWHERE defending Herman Cain with the SPECIFICS I’VE OUTLINED BELOW.  If you agree, PLEASE FORWARD THIS BLOG POST TO A FRIEND AND EXHORT THEM TO FORWARD IT TO THEIR FRIENDS!  The link you can cut and paste to this specific post is:

http://anniefields.com/blog/?p=2399

As I write this very early Thursday morning, we still have no specifics, no women, no pictures, nothing to back up these claims of ‘harassment’ on Herman Cain.

As I’ve written previously:  To this day, I remember Paula Jones’ bad perm.  We all still live in the fresh hell of Anthony Weiner’s weiner picture still in our minds’ eye  We remember the testimony that Bubba dropped trou and said ‘Wanna kiss it’?

In short, we had faces, names, quotes and witnesses who backed them up.  We have witnesses now who say they saw something in a restaurant and a talk-radio station hallway but won’t give specifics.  Unlike the original complainants, these ‘witnesses’ are not bound by any legal covenant.  Note, too, the venues we are talking about:  a restaurant and a radio station hallway are public places; not a hotel room or other private place… These people, Cain’s accusers & so-called witnesses are just throwing out fire-bombs of innuendo.  And speaking of throwing firebombs of innuendo…

…We have the reporters in the initial Politico story not giving details about exactly what happened, in, as they themselves have framed it, some gentlemanly effort to protect the woman…  Content, evidently with the result, which is to slander the reputation of the #1 GOP Presidential candidate, which is the only possible result from publishing with such a thin story if you have zero publishing standards but 110% agenda.  (Parenthetically,didn’t Politico get some Soros money a few months back? I know Media Matters did.  Duh.  But didn’t Politico?)

Cain has accused Perry of doing this, based on the reasonable conclusion that since someone with knowledge of the 1990’s settlement went to work for him 2 weeks ago. 10 days ago the story bubbled then hit the front page Sunday night.

This morning I awake to see that Drudge has some stories that Rahm Emmanuel may have had a hand in this.

Okay… I’m not suggesting that this was co-ordinated between the two, but if you can’t follow the money the second best thing is benefit.  Who does this benefit?

For GOP it would be Perry, of course, because it must be killing them, just fricking vexing to them that their guy, who started with so much heat, can’t get out of the cool basement of single digits.  

For Democrats the natural beneficiary to taking Cain down a peg or two would be Obama, of course, who has been campaigning all along like Romney is going to be their opponent.  

CONSIDER:  They’ve spent campaign money already putting out ads & talking points as though Romney is their guy.  Ferkryssakes!  What do you think this whole OWS thing is?  It’s an effort to foment civil unrest, next summer, during the conventions, after having spent the winter painting Romney as a Wall Street guy – their named enemy.

I’d bet my HOUSE it’s not just the polls we see on television & the internet that have Cain #1.  I’d bet these campaigns have internal polling – always far more accurate & detailed – that shows Herman Cain’s support far, far, far, far, far stronger than anyone’s previously suspected and each campaign looked at it like good campaigns do and said, ‘Where’s his soft-underbelly?  What’s the biggest balloon on these numbers we can prick to deflate this Cain train and stop it’?

LIKABILITY.

Cain’s support rests largely on a huge amount of good-will.  Ephemeral good will. 

Make him a philanderer and…

Look – Obama can’t – CAN’T – face a strong black man in the General.  It’ll look like the 98-pound weakling punk-ass kid, clutching his trust-fund paid Harvard degree getting a finger-wagging scolding from his grandfather telling him to quit his nancy-boy whining, man-up, and get the frickin’ job done.

He’ll lose, and he knows it.

Therefore, based on all the foregoing, I, for one, believe the internal polls told them the Cain train was coming and Rahm was set loose – and Perry planted the story.

Sigh… This is going to be a long Primary.