Did Gloria Allred Sex Up Herman Cain's Alleged Two-Handed Move?

Did lawyer Gloria Allred sex up her client Sharon Bialek's accusation against Herman Cain?

Count 1 is Allred's introduction of her client:

"Instead of receiving help from Mr. Cain, he decided to provide her with his idea of a stimulus package."

That introduces both the politically controversial stimulus legislation that was passed at the beginning of the Obama administration and the image of an erect penis.

Count 2 goes to the details of what happened in the front seat of that parked car, as read from the statement that Gloria Allred no doubt help write:

"He suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals. He also grabbed my head and brought it toward his crotch. I was very, very surprised and very shocked."

Look at the choice of words. Herman Cain is alleged not merely to have put a hand on the woman's leg but "under my skirt" and to have "reached for my genitals". And he is alleged not merely to have put his arm around the woman and to have drawn her towards him but to have "grabbed my head and brought it toward his crotch."

The classic front seat of the car move is for the man in the driver's seat to turn towards the woman in the passenger's seat, put his right arm around her shoulders and his left hand on her hand or her knee, then draw her in for a kiss. If the kiss is not rejected, he might move the free hand from her knee to her breast.

But who goes directly for the genitals? Is that even possible using the two-handed move way the accuser has described?

With one hand, let's say the left hand, he touches the woman's leg (if he gets skin and not cloth that is technically "under the skirt"). With the other hand, the right hand, he pulls the woman's head toward his lap which is of course blocked by his own outstretched left arm that is supposedly fiddling toward her genitals. That is quite a two-handed move.

Let's say he instead uses his right hand to grope her genital region and his left hand to grab her head. Again his right arm is in the way of bringing her head down into his lap. Find a willing partner and go practice in your car. This can't be done leading from the left or the right.

Count 3 is the strange sequence of events. First the accuser checks into her hotel, finding she has been upgraded from a standard room to a suite. Then she goes to dinner with Cain, where Cain asks her how she likes her hotel suite upgrade. Then, en route back to the hotel after dinner, Cain detours to the office where he parks and makes his move.

The clear suggestion is that Cain booked a suite for her because he meant to have sex with her there. Certainly that seems a more plausible and discreet venue for a tryst than the front seat of a parked car in front of his office building where any one of his 150 employees who happened to be working late might spot him.

The parked car in front of the office does set the scene for her to introduce the quid pro quo element, with the alleged exchange that broke off Cain's sexual advance:

She said: "Why are you doing this? You know I have a boyfriend!"

He said: "You want a job, don't you?"

That is the most damning part of the accusation. I have a great memory but a conversation 14 years ago? I might remember the subject of the conversation but exact words? In fact, about that time in the late 1990s I got a phoned death threat on my answering machine meant for someone else that I took seriously enough to report to the police. I would have to go back to the police report or the audio tape to tell you exactly the caller said.

On count 1, Gloria Allred is clearly guilty of sexing up her client's story. On count 2, the jury is still out but it looks to me that the classic front seat move has been sexed up by adding some titillating language describing a maneuver that just isn't possible to pull off. On count 3, something doesn't quite ring true but whether that can be attributed to Gloria Allred's lawyering, the accuser's poor ear for good fiction, or truth being more improbable than fiction I can't say.