Late Tuesday night, in the midst of a heated poker match in the spacious living room of my double-wide home, I whittled down the chips of a close family friend, Mark Block, who also happens to be Herman Cain’s chief of staff.
He never gambles more than he can afford to lose, but he’d been feeling lucky that night and brought along more than he wished to swallow, I think. He couldn’t get his head in the game; he kept fidgeting in his chair and asking whether “his Mercedes would be all right out there?” I told him that I hoped it wouldn’t and to just deal the cards.
Finally, in a desperate bid to win, Block threw every chip he had into the hand right after the river turned.
“Put in everything you’ve got, and I’ll put up an interview with Herman.” Block said. Usually, this would have been a sucker’s bet: I knew there were quite a few hearts on the table, and I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Mark had about ejected from his seat upon seeing the last one. I agreed, however, because I also knew that a full house beats a flush, even a high one, and that’s what I had.
Block was pissed. He swore, threw his king-high flush in my face and began kicking over my table chairs.
“When do I get the interview?” I asked him.
I’ll spare our readers from Mark’s unabridged reply, but let’s just say he told me there was a rather unpleasant place where I could put my interview. He then stormed out in a huff of four-letter words, stopping just long enough to heave his Blackberry through the large window in the main room. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see Mark again, let alone his wild wager, but Republicans will occasionally surprise you.
At 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, I got the call; it was the Presidential candidate himself, Herman Cain, and he said he was willing to grant Restoring Truthiness an exclusive interview so that he could shed light on recent allegations of sexual harassment against him and make clear sense of what he called, “Perry’s silly smear campaign.”
I got on the plane about two hours later. The interview began at 3:45 p.m. Wednesday on the large front porch of Cain’s cozy estate in Sandy Springs, Ga. and ran for only 10 minutes. It turned out to be plenty of time to get everything I needed and even more than I expected:
Restoring Truthiness: “These allegations, then, are all the doing of Governor Perry?”
Herman Cain: “Yes, but that weasel Anderson was in on it, too.”
RT: “They both deny involvement, so how can you be sure it was them?”
Cain: “I know how badly Perry wants to win; the Oval Office is all he thinks about. It’s a typical campaign strategy, and it works.
RT: “Still, the accusations have made a lot of waves for you. Do you think your campaign is still salvageable?”
Cain: “Oh, hell yes. These types of allegations aren’t that effective for a thing like this; if Perry had half a brain he’d have told everyone I cheated on my taxes.”
RT: “I’m not catching your meaning.”
Cain: “I mean that sexual harassment allegations, false or otherwise, only hurt Democrats. Perry’s sense of effective defamation is like China’s nuclear program: It doesn’t exist. Perry is a moron.”
RT: “How is that?”
Cain: “How should I know? Maybe his mother dropped him a few times or something.”
RT: “No, I mean why don’t accusations like that hurt conservatives?”
Cain: “Conservatives aren’t too big on feminism. Have you ever seen a staunch conservative getting too hot and bothered about women’s rights?”
RT:“What about female Republicans?”
Cain: “Women dumb enough to be Republicans just vote for whomever their husbands tell them to.”
RT: “It sounds like you don’t have much respect for women.”
Cain: “Welcome to the GOP, kid. We’re going to have to wrap this up now, I’m afraid.”
RT: “Can I ask just one more question, sir?”
Cain: “All right, out with it.”
RT: “Are you guilty of these allegations?”
Cain: “Let me put it this way, would you pay someone a ton of money to shut up if you were innocent?”
Related articles
- Herman Cain retracts the retraction and again blames Rick Perry campaign for sexual harassment story (dailykos.com)
- Herman Cain Brags About Ties to Koch Brothers (blogs.wsj.com)
- Is Herman Cain just too unpredictable? (cbsnews.com)
