[TheRealVille]

Herman Cain backtracked on a central part of his story about the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him in the 1990s, telling PBS and Fox News that he recalled details of a financial settlement with one of the women involved.

Changing his tune on the question of cash settlements was only the most glaring of several shifts in Cain’s comments Monday on the harassment charges leveled when he was president of the National Restaurant Association.

Cain told the PBS “NewsHour” that he recalled a financial “agreement” with a woman who accused him of inappropriate behavior at the National Restaurant Association.

Only hours before, Cain said he was unaware of any “settlement” related to sexual harassment – a reversal he attempted to explain away through verbal hair-splitting.

“I was aware that an agreement was reached. The word ‘settlement’ versus the word ‘agreement’ you know, I’m not sure what they called it. I know that there was some sort of agreement, but because it ended up being minimal, they didn’t have to bring it to me. My general counsel and the head of human resources had the authority to resolve this thing,” Cain said.

And in an interview with Fox host Greta Van Susteren that was previewed on the website of the Washington Examiner, Cain said the NRA “ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement” with an employee who complained about Cain’s behavior.

“My general counsel said this started out where she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement,” Cain said, according to the Examiner. He told Van Susteren his accuser was given “maybe three months’ salary. I don’t remember. It might have been two months. I do remember my general counsel saying we didn’t pay all of the money they demanded.”

Those comments clashed dramatically with Cain’s repeated assertions earlier in the day that he was not aware of any settlements that had been reached with women who said they felt harassed by Cain.

In an appearance at the National Press Club, Cain acknowledged that he had been accused of harassment, but said he’d been “falsely accused” and was “unaware of any settlement.”

In an earlier Fox interview – his first television appearance since POLITICO reported on past allegations of inappropriate behavior toward female subordinates – Cain said he did not know anything about payments to women who worked at the NRA.

“If the restaurant association did a settlement, I wasn’t even aware of it and I hope it wasn’t for much,” Cain said. “If there was a settlement, it was handled by some of the other officers at the restaurant association.”

It’s difficult – if not impossible – to explain Cain’s reversal from earlier Monday, when he said he wasn’t familiar with cash payouts, period, with his later admission that he had discussed terms of settlement with the NRA’s general counsel.

In fact, Cain’s latest statements on Fox and PBS bear a close resemblance to his campaign’s first response to POLITICO when asked about harassment charges under his leadership. “This was settled amicably among all parties many years ago,” Cain’s spokesman told POLITICO over a week ago. He subsequently said he was not referring specifically to a legal settlement.

And while Cain has pushed back ferociously on the POLITICO story revealing that the NRA had settled two harassment complaints against Cain, there were still more questions than answers at day’s end about his story.

In his public appearances Monday, Cain said categorically that he had “never sexually harassed anyone.” But in the interview with PBS, Cain left some wiggle room on a question about whether he had ever behaved in an “inappropriate” way.

“In my opinion, no,” Cain told interviewer Judy Woodruff. “But as you would imagine, it’s in the eye of the person who thinks that maybe I crossed the line.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67293.html