Desperate to deflect attention from the growing number of women who have accused Herman Cain of sexual misconduct, the Cain campaign has resorted to telling outright lies on national television. Last night, Cain chief of staff Mark Block went on Fox's Hannity show and said: "At the press conference it was brought up that Karen Kraushaar had come out as one of the women, so we've come to find out that her son works at POLITICO, the organization that originally put this story out."
Sean Hannity then pressed Block: "Have you confirmed that? I've been hearing that all day, rumors about that, you have confirmed that now right?"
Block responded: "We confirmed it with ahhh... that he does indeed work at Politico and that's his mother, yes."
This is simply 100% false. Block never names the reporter in question, but Josh Kraushaar used to work for Politico up until June 2010. I know Josh. I worked with him when I was at National Journal's The Hotline. Josh is a personal firend of mine. Josh does not work for Politico and Karen Kraushaar is not his mother. Josh has since returned to The Hotline where he now serves as executive editor.
For his part, Josh is taking the Cain campaign's lies in stride. Last night he tweeted: "The only positive benefit about being smeared by Mark Block on Hannity is I'm getting 100 new Twitter followers a minute."
Tonight's CNBC presidential debate is supposed to be about the economy. But the first question has to be to Herman Cain about these lies. The question does not have to be about the underlying sexual misconduct charges, but it should be about his campaign's relationship with the truth. Something like, "Your campaign manager blatantly lied on national television last night. How can the American people trust anything you say as long as he continues to serve on your campaign."
