Cain stumbles over Libya question

MILWAUKEE -- Herman Cain struggled to answer a question during an interview Monday when asked whether he supported President Barack Obama's policy in Libya.

The exchange with the Republican presidential candidate came during a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Cain hesitated when asked whether he agreed with Obama's decision to back the rebels in overthrowing Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed last month.

"I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason," Cain said in the videotaped interview.

"Uh, nope that's, that's a different one," said Cain, who fidgeted in his chair and crossed his legs. "See, I got to go back, see, got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with Obama?"

Cain eventually said he would have done a better job than Obama assessing the nature of the Libyan opposition to Gadhafi to make sure the rebels were not loyal to al-Qaida. He said he would have supported many of the steps taken to stop killings by Gadhafi's forces. He conceded he might have ended up taking the same steps as Obama.

Asked later about the exchange, Cain dismissed his stumble. "I paused so I could gather my thoughts," he said.

"After things erupted [in Libya], now we discover that some of the members of the opposition were actually al-Qaida members," he told reporters in Green Bay. "That's not the proper due diligence in my opinion."

Earlier Monday, the former boyfriend of a woman who accused Cain of inappropriate sexual behavior said that he and Sharon Bialek met the Georgia businessman in the late 1990s.

Victor Jay Zuckerman's account of an evening he, Bialek and Cain spent together in 1997 directly contradicts the candidate's assertions that he had never met his accuser and did not recognize her name.

"During the National Restaurant Association convention in Chicago, Sharon indeed did meet and spend time with Mr. Cain," Zuckerman said at a news conference in Shreveport, La., describing an after-party Cain had invited them to in a hotel suite after a convention event in Chicago. Cain was chief executive of the Washington trade group at the time.

Zuckerman spoke just as the firestorm around Cain seemed to be subsiding since the first disclosures on Oct. 30 set off a week of wall-to-wall news coverage.

There hadn't been any new information in a week about Cain or the accusations, and plans for a joint news conference by his accusers seemed increasingly unlikely.

Cain stood by his earlier statement that he does not remember Bialek, his attorney, Lin Wood said Monday.

Cain's wife of 43 years, Gloria Cain, was appearing in a Fox News Channel interview set to air last night.

"To hear such graphic allegations and know that that would have been something that was totally disrespectful of her as a woman and I know that's not the person he is," Gloria Cain said in excerpts of the interview released Sunday.