people should not misunderstand. the purpose of stories the purpose of this story was not to derail herman cain or boost another candidate. it was to tell the truth without fear or favor. it is herman cain who is derailing his own campaign, although i would not overestimate the ability of scandal to end a campaign. if everything these women say turns out to be absolutely true, and i have no reason to believe it s not, that would not necessarily end the cain campaign. maggie, rush limbaugh is out there saying these women are lying. rush limbaugh who doesn t know who they are, who believed every single word of every female accusation ever sent in the direction of bill clinton, or any democrat for that matter, but especially bill clinton, firmly believes these unnamed women are lying.
in fact let s hear what he said about it today. the evidence that we had on what s transpired the last two weeks led up to mr. anderson as being the source. until we get all the facts, you know, i m just going to say that we accept what mr. anderson had said and we want to move on with the campaign. that s a surrender to curt anderson. yeah. we accept and want to move on. the guy who we just blamed yesterday. yeah. this was a little bit different than what they were saying yesterday. and mr. cain also said in one of those interviews they were brought to the connect the dots point by another reporter. so that s what he was listing as evidence in one of these interviews today. i think mark block made it clear. they want to move on. they want to move on to talking about something else. right now you re in a situation where herman cain s wife is no longer doing a fox news interview that she d been in discussions to do for tomorrow night. he said we re getting an exclusive inter
national restaurant association. joel bennett, a lawyer for one of the women who got a year s pay settlement from the national restaurant association as a result of herman cain s alleged conduct is negotiating with the association to release her from her confidentiality agreement and allow her to accept the cain campaign challenge. sue hensley, senior vice president for public affairs communication for the national restaurant association do we have a picture of sue? we do? all right. put it up. that s right. put it right up there. i want people to see the people who are currently protecting the secrets of herman cain. sue hensley said today, our outside counsel was contacted by mr. ben net today and was asked to provide a response to a proposed statement by tomorrow afternoon.
politico has learned that the other woman who accused cain of sexual harassment received a payout of about $45,000, far more than their two or three month salary that cain recalled that woman receiving. that of course comes to a grand total of at least $80,000 of national restaurant association dues, paid by starbucks, burger king, mcdonald s, et cetera, that was bent to keep cain s accusers silent. the association said today they will decide tomorrow whether to grant the second accuser s request, to release her from the confidentiality agreement provision of her settlement so she can tell her side of the story. as reported here last night, the cain campaign said yesterday that an adviser to the 2004 senate campaign leaked this story. herman cain claims he told anderson about it in 2003.
anderson politely called cain a liar in a written statement saying cain never told him anything about it, and today, anderson called cain a liar again, this time on television. i didn t know anything about this. and so it s hard to leak something that you don t know anything about, of course. maybe it s a diverse ary tactic or something. i m not here to disparage herman. herman cain then took to the safety of sean hannity s radio show to kind of almost deny curt anderson s version of the story. hannity asked, did you tell him about this issue when you were running for the senate. i am almost certain that i did. see, here we go again, sean. his recollection from 12 years ago he says i didn t say it. my recollection from 12 years ago, i say i didn t say it. you see how this circle keeps on going? almost certain. almost. herman cain then told listeners