Take the accusations against Cain seriously

Yesterday, I wrote a somewhat incoherent post to the effect that, while I’m willing to extend to Herman Cain the benefit of the doubt regarding the sexual harassment allegations, I refuse to find myself in the position of a Clinton supporter, circa 1998, sullying my own soul by trying to justify inappropriate sexual acts.  Bill Bennett says it better:

It is hypocritical in the extreme for those members of the media who didn’t take the charges and allegations against Bill Clinton seriously to be taking the allegations against Herman Cain that we now have as seriously as they are. Hypocritical is probably too soft a word, frankly.

[snip]

I have watched long enough and held my tongue long enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but can no longer say this is a witch hunt, “a lynching” to use his word, or any other euphemism. There are allegations out there that matter and they have stacked up. For we who led the charge against Bill Clinton on a number of related issues to continue to blame the media or other campaigns or say it simply doesn’t matter makes us the hypocrites as well.

As I say, all of this is bad for our politics and polity. If Herman Cain cannot stand up to these charges, if he refuses to, then he should step out of the race. A man big enough to run for president should be big enough to have a full and candid press conference on all of this — he wants us to elect him president after all, he’s asking us to trust our lives and the country’s life to him. This could be one of his finest moments and it could be one of his worst. But either way, he must confront the moment candidly and manfully.