First Read:
Herman Cain's campaign is pushing back against the suggestion it requested Secret Service protection as a way to keep media at bay and limit the access reporters will have to the candidate.
"It has nothing to do with the media, it has nothing to do with reporters," campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon said of the request for Secret Service protection.
Gordon said the campaign had requested protection "a couple weeks ago" after having received a series of threats. But Gordon said he would not comment on the nature of the threats or any specific instances.
That's a different story than what Gordon told The Washington Post Thursday night:
Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon said Thursday night that the campaign asked for the protection after The Washington Post posted an article online that morning detailing a series of physical skirmishes involving journalists at Cain rallies. [...]
On the campaign trail, Cain “draws anywhere from a dozen to 50 media at his events," Gordon said. "When he gets out at a rally or a campaign stop, it has been increasingly common for media to be physically putting themselves and others in danger by trying to follow him with a lot of heavy equipment and cameras in close quarters like we saw yesterday."
Obviously, those statements are mutually incompatible, but based on the approval process involved for securing Secret Service protection, the campaign's new position that it requested the protection two weeks ago seems more realistic. But if that is in fact the case, it still doesn't explain why the campaign initially claimed it had only requested the protection yesterday. Or maybe it does explain it, and the explanation is this: Herman Cain's media team is utterly incompetent. As the old saying goes, the cheese doesn't fall far from the crust.