Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain may be under fire over allegations of sexual harassment — but that didn’t stop him from cracking up Thursday at the mention of Anita Hill.
The GOP contender was filmed having a hearty laugh after a supporter in Kalamazoo, Mich., brought up the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment 20 years ago.
Cain was working the room at a meet-and-greet when a person asked a question about Hill, who is now a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
A FOX News reporter filmed the interaction, and the laugh-fest that followed, but the supporter’s entire question could not be heard on the video.
“Did you hear the latest news today? Anita Hill is going to …” — but the person’s statement was inaudible.
“Is she going to endorse me?” Cain responded, leaning back and almost doubling over as he chuckled and raised his hands.
The crowd joined him in laughing it up.
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The tape was aired Thursday night on FOX News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier.”
Cain’s spin doctors were quick to quash any inference of the remark being inappropriate, considering that at least four women have made allegations of sexual harassment against him.
“It was a joke,” Cain’s spokesman, J.D. Gordon, told The New York Times, explaining that Cain was only “repeating what a supporter said.”
At least two of the women who accused Cain of being a perv got hefty settlements from the National Restaurant Association, which Cain was running when the incidents allegedly happened some 14 years ago.
The Kalamazoo crack-up comes on the heels of Cain issuing an apology for calling former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Princess Nancy” during a CNBC debate Wednesday night.
Earlier this week, Cain’s supporters aired an ad defending the candidate and comparing his sexual harassment scandal to a “high-tech lynching” — words Thomas used to counter Hill’s charges in 1991.
Hill was asked about Cain’s troubles while in Detroit this week promoting her book “Re-Imagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race and Finding Home.”
“I am proud that the issue is now front and center,” Hill said.
“But much more needs to be done. Younger and younger girls are being harassed in the workplace. We must envision a workplace where sexual harassment does not exist.”
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