It’s an old story:  A man and a woman meet at work and they hit it off.  They’re both married, although not to each other.  One lunch turns into two, two into three, and eventually they’ve got a pattern.  For years, they get together two or three times a week as regularly as clockwork, share daily emails, and call each other frequently.  Each makes the other happy because, in many ways, they are kindred spirits.  During their get togethers, they do not worry about their respective spouses.  Pretty sordid, huh?

Except it’s not.  I’ve described my decade-long friendship with my fellow blogger, Don Quixote.  Because we are each deeply committed to our own marriages, our relationship never veers from the enjoyably and respectably platonic.  Indeed, one of my favorite lunch companions is Mrs. Don Quixote, who joins us whenever she’s not at work.  She is a most delightful person, and I’m as pleased to count her among my friends as I am Don Quixote himself.  Don Quixote and I are just best friends, in much the same way two woman or two men share a purely non-sexual friendship.  I know I feel blessed to have this friendship, and I’m pretty sure he does too.

Fortunately, our family and friends know us well, which means that they know our values well, so I don’t believe there’s ever been the breath of suspicion hovering about our friendship.  But were either he or I to enter the public world and face the scrutiny of those who don’t know us, the evidence would be damning:  regular assignations, phone calls, emails.  It’s all there.  Our honest, righteous protestations of innocence would certainly fall on innumerable deaf ears.

As I write these words, I’m aware of very limited solid evidence to support Ginger White’s claim that she had a 13 year long affair with Herman Cain.  She’s pointed to phone calls.  He’s admitted them, but claims that they are innocent.  I also know that Ginger White doesn’t strike me as an exceptionally savory person.  One could take her spotted history to mean that she’d have no compunction about having an affair with a married man, or one could take it to mean that she has a somewhat strained relationship with the truth.  I don’t know.

And that’s the point:  the only two who know based upon the slender evidence available are Ginger White and Herman Cain.  One of them is lying.  I, however, am loath to convict a person based upon what could be, as Cain says, evidence only of friendship.  I happen to know a couple of older men, men in Cain’s age group and socio-economic stratum, who have gone out of their way for younger women, helping them financially or with work.  Both these men adore their wives and there never was evidence (or accusation) of any impropriety.  Both of them, however, clearly enjoyed the role of avuncular helper to an attractive, slightly younger, woman.  It was good for their egos, although it didn’t involve anything sordid.

I haven’t been impressed with the way in which Cain has handled these sexually based allegations — although, if one assumes these attacks are indeed smears (and, absent better evidence, I do), it’s virtually impossible to rebut them in an impressive way.  In the “he said/she said” battle that plays out over the liberal media, the conservative black man is always wrong.

Incidentally, I don’t have a dog in this fight.  Although I briefly considered Cain as a candidate, he simply doesn’t float my boat.  I like some of his ideas, I like his charm, I like his commitment to America, but he’s not the candidate for me.  The one thing I’m not going to do, though, is turn my back on the man because of unsubstantiated allegations that I know, for a fact, can be subject to other, entirely innocent, interpretations.

(Photo of Herman Cain by Gage Skidmore)

The London Times is discrete about it, but there is no doubt that, in its article about the MSM’s studied avoidance of the John Edwards love child story, it is noting the New York Times’ remarkable double standard:

The New York Times has not deigned to touch the story, although it recently ran thousands of words on a relationship between McCain and a female lobbyist, which appeared to be based more on innuendo than fact.

Can’t put it clearer than that, can you?

By the way, I would not be at all surprised if we start hearing similar stories about Barack.  My father always said “Democratic scandals are about sex; Republican scandals are about money.”

It’s true that, at the lower echelons, members of both parties have degraded themselves with sex and/or money scandals, especially lately.  However, since Roosevelt’s time, when you look at the Presidency (or presidential wannabes) there is no doubt that it’s the Democrats who have been more likely to use the White House as their own personal cathouse.

In that regard, I offer you Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Bill Clinton as examples of Democratic presidents who slept around, with the last two doing so on a perversely heroic scale.  At the candidate level (didn’t make it, but ran for it), first Gary Hart and now John Edwards wiped themselves off the slate with their escapades.

In the same era (1932 forwards), no Republican president has had a known affair (including Eisenhower, about whom false rumors swirled.) I also don’t recall any major Republican presidential destroying his candidacy with a sex scandal.

Given the fact that Obama is young and that women find him attractive (see this post too for that same point), and given the fact that he is a malignant narcissist (and narcissists in the Clinton mold have affairs to validate their sense of self), do you really think Obama isn’t a likely candidate for an affair?

I also don’t think that the scary Michelle is likely to stop him from having affairs, assuming that he does.  After all, the equally scary Hillary never made a dent in Bill’s style.

I know this is all conjecture, but I’m putting it in writing.  That way, if something ever comes out (and I think it will), I can go back to this post and say, “I told you so.”