Go back and look at
my reviews of the debates and at my
overall coverage of Herman Cain here and at other sites, and
you’ll see that I have praised him immensely and that I’ve been
more than open to the idea of him as president — assuming he
undergoes proper vetting. Well, he’s getting the vetting. It ain’t
abetting his cause. I am inclined to disbelieve the sexual
harassment allegations against him while insisting that it was
completely acceptable for Politico to report them— but
this latest report has me more than a little worried: A witness
says Cain’s behavior, if known, would “end his campaign.”
Look, if you are running for president and you know that two
such allegations (even if totally untrue) were lodged against you,
you darn well ought to have not only been prepared to discuss them
but also to pre-emptively air them out — and if there is truth to
them, you have no business running for president.
Meanwhile, the list of subjects on which Cain has not just made
gaffes, but actually sounded ignorant (NOT stupid; ignorant:
There’s a big difference) or inane keeps growing by the day. The
latest is his apparent lack of awareness that China already is a
nuclear power, and has been so for more than 40 years. This follows
his absurd citations of two sets of near-polar opposites as the
people whose thinking on foreign policy he agrees with most
(followed by the bizarre segue into citing Brent Bozell III in the
same answer), and his apparent endorsement of a “right of return”
for Palestinians, and his openness to negotiating with
terrorists.
On abortion, as well documented, he has said within the same
verbal paragraph that he is entirely pro-life and then provided a
100% pro-choice explanation for his position, not just once but
several times, without any apparent understanding that he has
completely contradicted himself. He has offered differing accounts
of whether the Fed should be audited, about whether he would ever
hire a Muslim — and about whether he ever said what he actually,
proveably did say about Fed audits and hiring Muslims.
Now, it really sickens me that Cain has played the race card by
asserting that the harassment story occurred because he is black. I
hate it when the Left plays the race card, and I hate it when the
right does. No, the story didn’t come out because he is black; the
story came out because ANY candidate for president who had multiple
allegations of harassment against him would eventually need to face
the story because somebody in the media would report it. The story
came out because the allegations already were there. The story
gained special prominence, perhaps, because he is a conservative
(the media would have reported it but also belittled it if it were
about Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy) — but not because he is black.
If it had been Romney or Perry or Ron Paul, the story would have
been played the exact same way.
Indeed, conservatives may be giving Cain a pass on lots of
things — his only-borderline-relevant experience, his verbal
slips, his lack of coherence on numerous issues — because
he is black and they subconsciously are so eager to defend a black
conservative from lefty/media attacks. It is an understandable
impulse: There is no racial animus in modern conservativism
whatsoever, but so few blacks are avowedly conservative that we get
excited when somebody as admirable as Cain comes along. But that
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t scrutinize him very carefully. All sorts
of good people might be good choices for very prominent jobs (in
Cain’s case: Treasury Secretary? Fed Chairman?) without being
ideal, or without being ready, for the presidency.
Far better that we hash these issues out now, months before the
first vote is cast, rather than letting the establishment media
along with the Obama campaign’s expected $800 million-plus
blindside Cain, and us, with these things in the fall.
TO BE CLEAR: This is not to say that Cain has disqualified
himself. He has a great record of accomplishment, a gift for
“connecting” with voters, a high degree of likeability, obvious
leadership skills, serious economic literacy, and many other fine
qualities.
But we don’t really know the man — yet. We have had no chance
to see how he actually behaves in elected public office. Without
that record, we have not just a right but a duty to probe even more
deeply into any other part of his background that seems relevant.
Vetting is a good thing.
Okay, done. Now readers can start your howling that I’m
somehow a RINO, or for Romney (decidedly NOT the case), or whatever
other epithet or insult you can come up with based on a misreading
of, or refusal to fully read, what I just wrote.
