Double standards, openly revealed, can demonstrate in many ways the qualities of both the people they are applied to and those applying the standards. Let me let Andrew Klavan explain,
…what if a drunken Republican senator had accidentally dropped a car containing his adultery mate into the water? What if he had sauntered back to his hotel to clean up while the poor woman desperately pounded on the car window until she drowned horribly? Would conservatives have re-elected that man? Would they have declared that man “The Lion of the Senate?” The very idea makes one ill. Conservatives would have demanded his arrest and trial with a single voice.
So the double standard continues with Cain. Not only have the reliably left wing news sites like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN been acting as if this were the story of the decade, but right wing sites like Fox and our own PJMedia have added fuel to the fire, eagerly tracking down more details. You can be sure that will keep happening as the story proceeds. And if Cain turns out to be guilty, you won’t be hearing any excuses for him here.
And yes, it’s unfair. But there’s a reason it’s unfair—a reason it should be unfair. There’s a reason we right wingers vet our candidates while the left adulates theirs, a reason we condemn our miscreants while the left elevates theirs, a reason our news outlets cover stories that the left covers up.
The reason is: we’re the good guys. We have to do what’s right. The left doesn’t. Sorry, but that’s the way it works. It’s the price you pay for defending what’s true and good, the price of holding yourself to a high moral standard. Our politicians have to be better than their politicians. Our journalists have to be more honest. Even our protesters have to behave with decorum and decency—and still suffer being slandered—while theirs can act like animals and commit acts of violence and lawlessness and spew anti-semitic filth and still find themselves excused and glorified.
And, of course I agree. If Herman Cain actually did engage in sexual harassment of employees (or anyone else, for that matter)–and so far nothing, including the most recent and finally open allegations have elicited any credence from me–then he deserves public condemnation and an end to his political aspirations.
But so far, all I have read have been either anonymous allegations of things that either lack credibility or any basis for claiming sexual harassment (undefined non-sexual gestures that some women took offense to, for example? Get real) and some woman who apparently, from what I’ve read so far, her claim of reasons for not filing a complaint against Cain when the events supposedly occurred is ludicrous, and her hiring of Gloria Allred sinks her late-blooming assertions now completely, as far as I’m concerned. Lie down with dogs, and all that.
But still, if there turns out to be any real meat on these dead men’s bones, I’d be happy to dump Cain in a heartbeat. I’m not holding my breath, though.
Update: Harvey applies the leftards’ standards for them.