Herman Cain joins Rick Perry in demonstrating his complete unreadiness to answer questions of Presidential timber. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board asked candidate Cain whether he agreed with President Obama on Libya. The result:
Shockingly unprepared to answer one of the most salient foreign policy questions of the year, Cain look like the shaky kid at the spelling bee, looking to the ceiling for help and asking the moderator to repeat the question. A minute-forty later, Cain finally manages to say he would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is. He says nothing about policy, nothing about what the administration got wrong about the opposition, nothing about what he would have done differently. And at 5:06, Cain collapses his own response by acknowledging he doesn't know what assessment the administration did of the Libyan opposition (known now to everyone but Cain as the liberators and new rulers of Libya).
Cain's most revealing quote has nothing to do with Libya but with, as is appropriate for a man of such hubris, himself:
I'm a much more deliberate problem/decision-maker is the point that I'm, that I keep coming back to. Some people want to say well as Presdient you're supposed to know everything. No you don't. I believe in having all of the information, as much of that as I possibly can rather than making a decision or making a statement about whether I totally agreed or didn't agree when I wasn't privy to the entire situation. There might be some things there that might have caused me to feel differently. So I'm not trying to hedge on the questions. It's just that that's my nature as a businessman. I need to know all the facts as much as possible [Herman Cain, interview, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board, 2011.11.14, timestamp 3:10&ndash3:48].
No, really, Herman, you are trying to hedge on the question. The question isn't about you; it's about Libya. You keep coming back to this point about yourself because you lack the knowledge to say anything substantive about Libya or anything else. You obviously don't believe in having all the information, because you haven't read enough or gotten briefed by your people enough to answer this very predictable and important question about Libya.
And wait a minute: haven't I heard Cain's fellow travelers criticize President Obama for his "deliberative" nature?
Mr. Cain, take Art Oakes's advice: quit milking your donors, bow out gracefully, and let the Republicans who understand policy (Romney, Huntsman, and Gingrich?) get on with leading the discussion.
Since Cain's donors are the Koch Brothers, I kinda hope he stays in this and milks them for as long as he can.
"Mr. Cain, what would you do to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?"
"Nine, nine, nine. Jobs, jobs, jobs."
"Um, okay, got it. Now suppose that Iran actually gets a bomb, and we find out because they test it? How would you deal with that?"
"Nine, nine, nine. Jobs, jobs, jobs."
"I see. Well, maybe there's something to be said for that view. How about the worst-case scenario where Iran actually deploys a bomb and incinerates four hundred thousand Israelis? How would you respond?"
"Nine, nine, nine. Jobs, jobs, jobs."
"Thank you, sir. You've enlightened us all."
Donald, I'd love to see Cain do some damage to the Kochs' bottom line. But my worry is that they won't see it that way. They may figure they have enough money that they can afford to keep Cain alive until the end and gamble on their ability to buy the nomination and the Presidency. Maybe they figure the benefits of owning a President make the gamble worth playing.
Stan: spot on!