What he said

This post from Charlie Pierce sums up my thoughts on the anonymity of the Hermanator’s victims accusers:

Last night, on MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell had Roger Simon and Maggie Haberman from Politico on to talk about whatever comes next in the saga of Herman Cain and his wandering… well, whatever it was of his that did the wandering a few years back. Both O’Donnell and Simon agreed that the women involved in the original complaints should come forward, confidentiality be damned. “I wish they’d come forward,” Simon said. “Who’s going to sue them? The National Restaurant Association is not going to sue them. Herman Cain’s not going to sue them.”

Jesus H. Christ on a weekend furlough, have you watched any politics over the past 30 years?

These women are not staying anonymous because they’re afraid that they’ll be sued. They’re staying anonymous because they don’t want to be destroyed in public by the wolverines of the lunatic Right. Put out their names, and they’re everybody’s Blue Plate Special on Fox News and all over your AM radio dial for the next two years, and that’s not even to mention the fact that there are some seriously unbalanced people out there who might decide to take this all very, very personally.

Exactly. I saw that O’Donnell segment last night and had the same thoughts. Why on earth would these women want to subject themselves to the sort of crap that they know such publicity guarantees?

And, to bang on my usual drum, if major media outlets kept reminding voters of the fact that Cain’s economic plan is an insanely regressive handout to those plutocratic few who’ve seen their incomes skyrocket during the past 30 years, that would be enough to discredit him with the general electorate (maybe not in the Republican primary).

But no. Economic matters turn their minds to mush. Villagers just lurve the sexy scandals, though.