Herman Cain knew if he were to get any kind of traction he would be facing the Clarence Thomas treatment:

“They’re going to come after me more viciously than they would a white candidate,” Cain responded. “You’re right. Clarence Thomas. And so, to use Clarence Thomas as an example, I’m ready for the same high-tech lynching that he went through — for the good of this country.” Cain smiled broadly. “I’m ready for the same high-tech lynching.”

Well, he’s getting the same high-tech lynching. The Politico filed this today:

During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

…

The sources — which include the recollections of close associates and other documentation — describe episodes that left the women upset and offended. These incidents include conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices. There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.

…

Information about the incidents was apparently closely held, even among association board members. But one woman’s complaint apparently did make its way to at least some figures on the governing board when, at an association event, one board member got word that a female employee had complained about Cain’s advances, according to a source who was at the event.

The source said the board member asked the woman directly about the episode and was told that Cain had invited her up to his suite at a prior association event.

That’s pretty much the bulk of the “scandal.” Now here, on page four of the article, is this:

Ron Magruder, Denise Marie Fugo and Joseph Fassler, the chair, vice chair and immediate past chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors at the time of Cain’s departure, said they hadn’t heard about any complaints regarding Cain making unwanted advances.

“I have never heard that. It would be news to me,” said Fugo, who runs a Cleveland, Ohio, catering company, adding such behavior would be totally out of character for the Cain she knew. “He’s very gracious.”

Fassler, who helped bring Cain on board as CEO of the restaurant association, said that any inappropriate behavior was not brought to his attention and that he would be upset to learn it had gone on and he was not made aware of it.

“That’s a shock to me,” Fassler said. “As an officer during all of Herman’s years there as a paid executive… none of that stuff ever surfaced to me. Nobody ever called me, complained about this, nor did I ever hear that from Peter Kilgore, nor did I ever hear that from Herman Cain.”

Fassler – who ran a Phoenix food-service company and finished his term as chairman the month before Cain’s June 1999 departure but remained on the board’s executive committee – described Cain as treating men and women identically and asserted it was “not within his character” to make unwanted advances. “It’s not what I know of him,” Fassler said.

Much like Fassler, almost all board members remember Cain fondly and say he left on good terms.

Cain was “extremely professional” and “fair” to female staffers at the restaurant association, recalled Lee Ellen Hayes, who said she “worked fairly closely with” Cain in the late 1990s, when she was an executive at the National Restaurant Association Education Fund, a Chicago-based offshoot of the group.

Cain’s treatment of women was “the same as his treatment of men. Herman treated everyone great,” said Mary Ann Cricchio, who was elected to the board of the restaurant group in 1998. She said Cain left such a good impression on the organization that when he spoke at a group event in January of this year, as he was considering a presidential bid, “he had unanimous support in the room.”

Is it possible Herman Cain did sexually harass those two women? Of course. It is also possible Politico has a flimsy story here about allegations that were settled decades ago.

As Doug Mataconis said at Outside the Beltway, “…allegations of this sort can be made and settlements can be reached on the advice on corporate counsel even if the question of fault is ambiguous.”

There is a lot to this story we don’t, and most likely never will, know. As of now, my default is to give Herman the benefit of the doubt and consider the Politico’s motivations suspect.

However, if it comes to light that Herman did anything that borders infidelity, I’m the first off the Cain Train. As I have said before, if you cannot keep your word to your wife and God, then you sure can’t keep your word to the people.

That being said, my gut tells me I don’t have to worry about getting off the train.

Now, a bit of advice for Herman. Watch this and apply Stacy McCain‘s OEI process: