Recap of the Herman Cain harassment debacle to date

1. Herman Cain was apparently accused of sexual harassment by two women during his stint with the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

2. Cain revealed his flair for the dramatic during an appearance in Washington Wednesday morning, telling an audience of tech executives that anonymous "factions" are waging war against his campaign.

3. Cain initially blamed the mainstream media and liberals for spreading the "baseless lies" about him.

4. Then Cain lost it on a bunch of reporters in Virginia and his bodyguards started a melee that ended with a father and his kid being pushed up against a wall.

5. Then, the AP came out with a report that a third woman who worked for the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s came forward to accuse Cain of making "inappropriate" and sexually suggestive behavior.

6. A lawyer for one of Cain's two initial accusers filed a request for his client to be released from her confidentiality agreement so she could share her side of the story. But by the end of the day, the woman had changed her mind and decided not to go public for fear of becoming "another Anita Hill."

7. The Cain campaign shifted the blame game by accusing Rick Perry's campaign of leaking the sexual harassment story in some kind of professional political hit job.

8. Perry's media team went into overdrive, flatly denying that the Texas Governor's presidential campaign was behind the incendiary Cain story.

9. Donald Trump weighed in on the debacle, telling Cain to sue the women who accused him.

10. Newt Gingrich, a 2012 presidential hopeful who has seen his fair share of sex scandals, had some words of wisdom for his Republican rival: "My first advice is to do what he hasn’t done, which is say nothing until you sit down with your lawyers and with the people who know the facts."

11. Mark Block, Herman Cain's now famous chief of staff, doubled down on the campaign's accusations against the Perry campaign, and demanded an apology from the Texas Governor.

12. At the end of the day, Herman Cain - speaking in the third person - declared ""Herman Cain is in it to win it. And why is Herman Cain in it to win it? Because Herman Cain is inspired."

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