From Monday night’s Fox News All-Stars.
On Sharon Bialek’s allegations of sexual misconduct against Herman Cain:
Well, the presence of Gloria Allred doesn’t help anyone’s case. Nonetheless, this is a very serious charge. It’s not sexual harassment. She wasn’t an employee at the time. If true, it’s a kind of sexual assault, which is an order of magnitude worse.
Now, to be lawyerly about it, the corroboration is not quite as [strong] as presented. There are affidavits of people who said she spoke to them at the time. But she said she was too embarrassed to give any details. So she probably spoke about some kind of inappropriate behavior, which could have been anything.
So, we only have her word on the actual details of what occurred — her word against his word. This is a classic case: There are no witnesses. And there’s no way to adjudicate between them.
The problem for Cain is it [this accusation] comes on top of several other accusations. And it also involves a woman who appears to have no motive other than coming out and telling what she thought had happened. There may be one [motive], but it’s not obvious. I think for Cain, this is going to be something that he may not be able to actually shake.
On a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll in which only 20 percent of Republican respondents said that a nominee’s electability is more important than his or her conformity with their views:
I think that 20 percent will grow as Election Day approaches and as people really have to decide whether they want to take a risk.
Michelle Bachmann is the one who put it best: we don’t have to settle this time, meaning, we can go for ideological purity. We don’t have to settle for a Romney – that’s the obvious implication. But she also said in the debate, the outcome of this election is baked in cake: Obama is a one-term president.
That is an assumption that is entirely unwarranted. Obama could very well win the election. If you assume it’s a lost election [for Obama], of course you want the most ideologically congenial candidate. If you don’t assume that (and you shouldn’t) then you want to think about — as a conservative, as a Republican — what is the cost of making a miscalculation and having a second Obama term?
On the chances of the Supercommittee reaching an agreement:
I was optimistic at the beginning because I thought this would be one chance to do tax reform, and there you can get the liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, to agree. It happened in 1986 and everybody is happy. But it looks as if it is not going to happen.
I think the main reason is this: Barack Obama has decided in the interim — it began with the speech he gave to joint session of Congress — that the only way he can run is to end… actually doing some governance and run full- time as a candidate…
We are now in the full campaign mode. With nine percent unemployment, he has only one choice. He needs a foil, a do-nothing Congress, and he has to make sure it does nothing….
Democrats are insisting on tax hikes, a hike in tax rates — not just revenue, which Republicans would accept if you eliminate loopholes — a hike in tax rates, which he knows Republican will not accept. So it ends up in deadlock. And then he has a foil….