The Cain Mutiny

I’m wondering who the next person to come forward to claim Herman Cain groped them and am fearful it might be me. Our paths have crossed.

Sharon Bialek says she was in Washington staying at the Capitol Hilton in 1997 when Cain made a lust-fueled lunge at her loins after drinks in the hotel bar.

The news stirred The Washington Post to write the scandal puts the Hilton in the “elite pantheon of hotels of infamy.”

To me, it’ll always be in the elite pantheon of hotels that host kids that can spell words like cymotrichous and stromuhr.

The hotel was the long-time host of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, an event I twice chaperoned to the fiscal detriment of the Nashville Banner’s profit margin. The hotel was the landmark site of my first opportunity to blow out an expense account.

Part of my “expenses” involved lobster dinners and a $90 ticket to see Charlton Heston star in “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial” at the Kennedy Center. Ronald and Nancy Reagan attended the same performance. I wrote about the whole thing here.

Remember the great 1954 movie? It starred Humphrey Bogart as Capt. Philip Queeg of the Navy minesweeper Caine. The Caine captain loses touch with reality and is eventually disgraced.

We’re today witnessing the beginnings of another Cain mutiny.

He’s finished. His campaign surge struck me as odd and an indication of how desperation is leading the GOP off the presidential cliff during what should be a gimme election.

Bialek made the charges beside her attorney, feminist crusader Gloria Allred, who should consider for reasons of accuracy changing her name to Gloria Allmakeup.

The charges seem credible. Of course, I’m a liberal Democrat, so charges against a Republican carry more weight with me than when the same charges are leveled against someone like Bill Clinton.

It’s the exact opposite with Republicans who unleash special prosecutors and moral indignation whenever a Democrat is accused of the same murky shenanigans.

Really, a more non-partisan question always pops into my head whenever I hear a woman say, as Bialek says, her date shoved one hand up her skirt while using the other to push her head into his lap.

The question is: Does that ever work?

I imagine there are women out there who’ll succumb to that sort of blunt maneuver, but I think most of them are either hookers or pancake waitresses interested in dating Tiger Woods.

I’d never dream of trying that sort of thing. I’d be terrified the woman might sever the relationship -- and I’m not just talking about the relationship between me and her.

I’m talking about the relationship between me and my tender little troublemaker.

As romantic come-ons go, it certainly lacks the subtlety and sophistication I champion.

I was advising a heartsick friend the other day that he’d never need to worry about meeting strange women -- and women who talk to friends of mine are uniformly strange -- because I authored the George Clooney of pick-up lines.

I share it because it saddens me to think of how much loneliness there is in the world and because my married butt has no use for it.

I told him to approach the most stunning woman in the room and say with utmost sincerity: “Was it as difficult for you growing up beautiful . . . as it was for me?”

It’s irresistible. It’s complimentary and manages to be simultaneously self-deprecating and egotistical.

It’s a pity I thought up that line about five years after I became a married father -- and that happily married men still spend idle hours thinking up winning pick-up lines is the reason attorneys like Allred will never be broke.

I have to admire Cain’s moxie. He’s insisting on not talking about the only thing everyone is talking about. He’s threatening to sue news organizations that report on the existence of factual documents he signed. And he’s acting like old Capt. Queeg did before the Navy instigated court martial proceedings.

I’m not saying he’s crazy, but he’s certainly engaging in calaginous behavior.

Calaginous is a Latin adjective meaning dim, murky, dark or obscure.

Care to hear it used in another sentence?

Oops. Sorry.

Oh, how the sweet sting of spelling bees past forever lingers!

Who knew lobsters and bees would be such a memorable combination?