Tag Archives: herman cain

February 10, 2012 · 11:26 pm

You Can’t Explain the Brain of Herman Cain

Hoo boy, Steven King (R-Iowa) was just the warm-up band in the big rock festival of stupid that is the CPAC* convention currently going down in Washington, D.C.

Take Herman Cain, for instance.  I know he’s no longer in the race, he’s no longer a major

Herman Cain - still a well liked figure among Republicans

political force, he’s got less direct influence than Stephen Colbert and he’s a comedian.  But it bears remembering that not so long ago he was considered a serious candidate, a potential Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

During a conversation with a reporter at CPAC Cain, after going on for awhile about how he never uses a teleprompter, which doesn’t surprise me too much and maybe he gets a couple of style points for being willing to say whatever’s on his mind even if it’s absolute twaddle, said this:  “And there is a Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-beki-stan.  There really is one.”

That’s just weird.  It’s off.  Does he mean he thinks there is a country by that name, which would be silly, or that he realizes now that there is a country called Uzbekistan, but still doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether he pronounces it correctly or not.

Forget about him just being a giant asshole, trying to score a cheap political soundbite by mocking the name of a relatively uninfluential nation.  I think there is a bigger problem here.

I get the feeling that Herman Cain, even after getting a gazillion hits on YouTube and people falling down laughing at his You-becky-becky-becky-stan-stan comment, didn’t get the joke.  First of all, he thought he’d made a good point, that he’d look it up on Wikipedia if we ever had to declare war on them, that a president didn’t really need to know stuff in advance.  Secondly, (and this I’m assuming based on his comment today) he didn’t actually know that there was a country called Uzbekistan.  He’d just been talking gibberish.  What we interpreted as a mispronunciation was far worse.

And he didn’t understand that.  So, when he found out, probably a couple of days ago, that there actually was such a place, he felt vindicated.  See, he says, there really is a You-becky-becky-becky-becky-stan.  And he says it jovially.

It’s a pretty high level of disconnectedness, and it’s scary to think that he was almost the leader of the free world.  Too close for comfort, anyway.

Some of you may be wondering:  Do I really think Herman Cain is that incredibly uninformed about world affairs and unbelievably out of touch with American chat?  And I think of his answer to the Libya question.

*conservative political action conference

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November 11, 2011 · 10:18 pm

What in the World Does it Take?

Howard Dean’s political ambitions were cut short by a scream.  It really wasn’t that  big a scream, but they played it over and over again on TV and that was an end on it.  Shame.  IMHO, Howard Dean would have made a great president.  Mike Dukakis looked really stupid in a tank, wearing a

Dumber Than a Box of Hammers

helmet, and that was enough to doom his chances.  Gary Hart got caught with a girl – just one.  Edmund Muskie, back in ’72, let a teardrop fall during an emotional speech.  You’d have thought he peed in his pants, the way the newspapers carried on.

It’s true.  Presidential campaign’s have  collapsed  for  a wide  variety of reasons, not all of them  political.  So,   what’s   changed?

Both Herman Cain and Rick Perry   seem to have unassailable candidacies.  That is, as much as the saner segment of society is   scratching its collective noggin and saying “Well, by  golly, looks like that Cain guy is a pure   fool, doesn’t it?” and “Dang,  that Rick Perry  guy is so  dumb, he reminds me of W,” they both have their   devoted  followers.

But let’s compare the record.  Cain can’t pronounce Uzbekistan, doesn’t   really understand what pro-life means,  only found out a  few day ago that China has nuclear weapons, put out a  really stupid ad in favor of smoking,  wants to  rewrite   Hail to the Chief, plagiarized his  tax code from a computer game and is currently beset by  allegations of sexual  harassment  and  campaign  finance irregularities.  He’s not only  still in, he just had a record breaking  month for fund raising.

Then  there’s  Texas Governor Rick Perry.  You’d think the Granite State  speech, where he looked like Peewee Herman, fondling that maple syrup  bottle at the end,   would have done him in.  Not Rick Perry.  You’d think that his  lame debate performances up till now would have done him in.  You’d have been wrong.

So, is he finished after the other night’s  debacle, in which he said he planned to eliminate 3 government agencies and then could only think of two of them?   I   doubt it.  These are Republicans we are talking about here.

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October 31, 2011 · 10:57 pm

I Got Your Extra Pepperoni Right HERE, Lady!

Well, it turns out that Herman Cain had some sexual harassment charges against him, once.  It was back when he was top dog at the National Restaurant  Association, they were paid “5 figures” (at least $10,000) each to drop the case and never  talk about it again.

Republican Presidential Candidate HERMAN CumstAIN

If $10,000  seems small time – after all, Bill O’Reilly paid “between 2 and 10 million” to Andrea Mackris to shut up about the famous   felafel phone call, after  everybody had already heard the tape any way- just remember, this is before Herman Cain was famous.  10,000 is probably the price for a regular CEO.   If you are a female member  of the 99% and your sleazy  boss, Eddie, tries to fuck you in his office, you might be able to squeeze a hundred bucks out of him by threatening to tell his wife.  Probably not even.

Anyway, Cain spent the day making non-denial denials and trying to downplay the whole thing.  My favorite line was this:  “Once I referenced this lady’s height and I was standing near her” (and she) “thought that that was too close for comfort.  It was in my office, the door was wide open, and my secretary was sitting right there, and we were standing there and I made the little gesture.”

Could you be a bit more specific?  Was the reference to the girl’s height maybe “Oh, my gosh, your tits are right at my mouth level, hot diggety, let me just rest my head on those pillows, heh, heh”?  Or was she a short gal and the reference was to convenient blow jobs?  Was the “little gesture” maybe a palm cupping her butt, or a sleazy hip grind?

Sure, this is a dirty political trick on the part of whoever brought this up, and it has no legal relevance since he was never charged, but…  it did happen, whatever it was, and  it is worth  looking into.  Just for the comedic value, if nothing else.

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October 25, 2011 · 9:29 pm

Herman Cain’s Crazy Train

The Herman Cain crazy train just keeps chugging along.  After his disastrous comment on abortion a few days back (which made me suspect he thinks he can just apply the phrase “it’s none of the government’s business” any time he gets confused and doesn’t know what to say), was

He'll Put the United Back in United States!

overshadowed by Rick Perry’s insane birther ramblings and even more insane defense of those ramblings ( Well, heck, I know it’s not true, I just think we should keep saying it because it’s funny, har, har), Cain needed to throw some more chips into the crazy pot just to stay in the game, so he produced this little gem.

Now, the text is nothing original.  Pretty standard average guy talking about how much he likes Herman Cain.  Except for the fact that he’s Herman Cain’s campaign manager, or something like that.  Really, that’s pretty lame.  You can go one of two ways with testimonial ads.  Either get a variety of people who really do look like average folks:  An old woman, a young Hispanic man, a child, a cute old couple where she’s talking a mile a minute and he’s just nodding resignedly.  Let them say lots of nice things about the candidate.  Or get some major public figure who everybody respects and have them sing the candidate’s praises.  But your campaign manager?  Come on, Pizza Man.

Then comes the really weird part.  After he’s finished speaking, when the music comes up real dramatic like, old campaign manager Mark Block takes a big, old drag off his cigarette, like he thinks he’s Robert Mitchum or somebody.  For no apparent reason whatsoever.

There is always a reason.  Mike Gravel throwing a rock into the lake was symbolic of something.  Even when that obscure Republican candidate (Johnson? Huntsman?) did the weird ads about the guy on the motorcycle, at least it was interesting desert scenery.

What is Cain trying to say here?  That all Americans should start smoking again?  Is smoking a new metaphor for freedom?  Does Mark Block think he is the urban, middle aged Marlboro Man?

My suspicion is this.  It’s a setup.  If liberals, like myself, respond to this ad with a big WTF?, which is pretty much the only response, it allows the Cain clan to respond “Well, Barry smokes!”  First off, I’m not sure he does, and secondly, it doesn’t really matter.  It’s just a really stupid thing to put into your campaign advert.  Looks dorky.

The comforting thing is this is really the best line of attack the Republicans have.  Besides the teleprompter, Dijon and birth certificate issues, of course.

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October 18, 2011 · 9:30 pm

The Continuing Absurdity of Herman Cain

Herman Cain’s absurd statements and actions are popping like popcorn, they are coming up with such dizzying rapidity that I feel compelled to compile a list, because some of the more comical ones run the risk of being drowned in the flood of new

Herman Cain

revelations, and that would be a gosh darned shame.

I will start with the most recent and work back, sort of.  If I’ve left anything out, and I’m sure I have, feel free to mention it in the comments.

The latest is that he used $100,000 of his campaign funds to buy copies of his book to give out free to supporters.  It’s not technically illegal, and actually it’s kind of a neat trick.  Supporters donate to your campaign, and you use the money to buy copies of your book to give back to them.  It pushes the book up the best seller list, which means he might actually sell some copies, and they make a handy little gift bag item for people who show up at his rallies.  Sarah Palin did it.  Newt Gingrich does it.  In fact, it only really qualifies as absurd due to the inanity of the book itself.  Things he will do differently than the current president:  He’d hold a series of celebratory events instead of an “inaugural ball”, I suppose because celebratory events are cheaper, and he’d rewrite “Hail to the Chief.”

Speaking of Cain’s musical stylings, his really lame parody of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” called “Imagine There’s No Pizza” can be seen here.

Then there’s his statement that the liberals killed Jesus.  Link here.

The whole electric fence thing.  He did say later that it was a joke, but he had the crowd cheering at the whole idea of zapping Mexicans like bugs.  He didn’t deliver it in a very joking way.

Copying his 999 plan from SimCity.  He says he didn’t, but it sure looks like he did.

Not knowing the definition of neocon.  It actually sounded like he didn’t know the definition of neo.  (when asked if he was a neoconservative, he said “I’m not familiar with that movement.  I am very conservative.)

You beki beki beki stan stan

Saying that black people had been brainwashed into voting Democratic.  Talking about the Democratic Plantation.  And then, saying that Barack Obama hadn’t really lived the American black experience like he had.

And remember, folks.  This is the Republican FRONT-RUNNER.

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