Tonight is The American Spectator ‘s annual dinner, featuring Rep. Paul Ryan.
Back when I was a lawyer I handled several sexual harassment suits. None of mine settled for less than the high end of six figures. Reading about these two complaints, my gut reaction to them is that settling for five figures, which could be as little as $10,000.00 and as high as $99,999, was “go away” money. If the Chief Executive Officer of the National Restaurant Association, at the time one of the top 25 trade associations in Washington, D.C., were sexually harassing someone, that someone could get a lot of money. It just strikes me that a settlement for less than six figures is money paid to deal with the nuisances of an employee fired or otherwise let go who decided to raise the specter of harassment to get more money to leave without causing a scene. Dealing with harassment claims, no matter how substantive or frivolous, is one of the costs of doing business in America that causes more and more businesses to not do business in America. We don’t know a lot of the facts, but Ben Domenech does raise a good point I remember well from 2008. In his Transom this morning, he writes: Many staffers were struck throughout the 2008 campaign by how often leaks about certain candidates would come out right before previously scheduled media availabilities or TV appearances, forcing a candidate to immediately answer difficult questions to a horde of rabid journalists or duck the avail and make it seem even worse. Now Cain has this story drop at 8 PM on a Sunday night—whole cloth, with no evidence of investigation beyond calling the people named in the documents—a mere 12 hours before he’s supposed to have a full day of media availability in Washington, DC at the American Enterprise Institute and the National Press Club. I feel like I’ve seen this movie. There are only two candidates running this time who ran then, and I don’t think Ron Paul even has an oppo research arm. Curiouser and curiouser. I think people are finally starting to take Herman Cain seriously. I would also note to the Cain campaign that they need to let the candidate deal with this himself. The communications director’s call in to Geraldo last night disqualifies him from doing so. And if he keeps on, it’s only a matter of time before reporters start asking the communications director about his own history at the Pentagon where he accused a female reporter of sexual harassment.
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The Herman Cain Allegations
I pointed out earlier that Pawlenty took a swing at TARP and “too big to fail” during his campaign announcement speech. Pawlenty also called TARP “a bad decision” in his pre-campaign book Courage to Stand . But back in 2008, when he was a John McCain campaign surrogate — and possible McCain running — mate — and the legislation was actually being debated, Pawlenty sang a different song: In most of his contemporaneous statements on TARP, Pawlenty was careful to make clear he was defending McCain’s position rather than staking out one of his own. But here he was at the National Press Club on August 6, 2008: MODERATOR: Another questioner asks, “How can you be such an advocate of marketplace economics when airlines, banks, and trillion- dollar mortgage insurers like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in need of rescue by the American taxpayer?” PAWLENTY: Well, there has been market failure, some of it by business practices, some of it by bad judgment, some of it, perhaps, by other behavior. But markets are imperfect, but they self-correct. And so in an ideal marketplace, you’d allow those entities to fail. But if you allow those entities to fail, the consequences are so severe for innocent bystanders, namely average Americans who rely on the markets, rely on those mortgages, you know, the consequences are too severe. So from a pure marketplace principle, you would not bail them out. But we also have to measure that against the consequences to the rest of the country. And, you know, that is an imperfect solution, but, like has been said, they are too big, the consequences are too severe for innocent bystanders to allow them to fail. So it’s an imperfect solution, but you also have to be pragmatic about getting the mess cleaned up. (Emphasis mine.) In essence, Pawlenty endorsed — however reluctantly — TARP and too big to fail. James Pethokoukis of U.S. News reported at the time, “Tim Pawlenty says he is reluctantly for [TARP].” Salon did a story on “Tim Pawlenty’s bailout shuffle” earlier this year. Romney continues to say he’s for the good Paulson TARP but against the bad Geithner TARP, so he’s not going to be in a position to make any hay out of this. But expect Republicans running to Pawlenty’s right to bring up these past comments.
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TPaw and TARP, Cont’d
You heard the man. (CNSNews.com) – Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com today that the health-care law that President Barack Obama signed last March is a “platform” for a building single-payer health system in the U.S. During a newsmakers program at the National Press Club on Monday, Conyers said that after discussing the issue with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) he voted for the health-care law because he saw it as a necessary “platform” for building toward a single-payer health-care system in the United States.
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Rep. John Conyers (D-Commie): ObamaCare a “Platform” for Creating Single-Payer System…
Yesterday the chairman of Obama’s sublimely misnamed Council of Economic Advisers got the hell out of Dodge. In an earlier, more genteel day a cosmic failure like Christina Romer would have packed her Prius after dark and been hours out of town before the light of day. This, however, is the Age of Testimony and Validation. So Romer left after a luncheon at the National Press Club. I’ll let Dana Milbank pick up the narrative : Lunch at the National Press Club on Wednesday caused some serious indigestion. It wasn’t the food; it was the entertainment. Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her “valedictory” before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last: She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn’t understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn’t have much of an idea about how to fix things. What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: “Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare.” I suppose we should give Romer points for candor. It takes a really big person to walk away from what should be the culminating role of a career, scratching their backside and muttering. And to do it in front of the national press corps. It is also a fitting end to the Summer of Recovery . Unfortunately, it also shows the White House is, as pilots say, out of altitude, out of airspeed, and out of ideas. Philosophically they will neither cut taxes nor spending nor roll back business killing regulations. Politically they will not be able to convince the Democrat caucus in the House and Senate to fund a new round of stimulus spending. So as the world’s largest economy circles the bowl enroute to subsidizing a green job somewhere, Obama’s chief economic adviser shrugs her shoulders and essentially quotes Otter of “Animal House” on the way out.
Excerpt from:
Christina Romer Hits The Silk
