Herman Cain: Failing The Foreign Policy Test
There wasn’t much that was notable about Herman Cain’s appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, which was in itself surprising because I would’ve thought Bill O’Reilly would’ve picked up on some of the other comments that have been floating out there lately, like the three-page bill thing or the Muslim loyalty oath. Nonetheless, in that short segment, Cain did demonstrate once again that he has a lot to learn when it comes to foreign policy:
CAIN: The way you stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is for us to get serious about a real, energy-independence strategy.
O’REILLY: That’s gonna take longer than this year. How do you stop them from getting a nuke this year?
CAIN: Have a serious strategy, Bill, and if you have a serious strategy, it’s going to cause the speculators to speculate down, instead of speculating up.
O’REILLY: But that’s not going to stop Iran. Even if gas prices go down, it’s not going to stop Iran from developing a nuke.
CAIN: Not in the short-term, Bill, but here’s my punchline: if we help drive the price of oil down, that hurts Iran, and if the price of oil gets down near $70/barrel, we win, they won’t have the money to develop a nuclear program.
The connection between oil prices and Iran’s nuclear program is something that I’m sure everyone was trying to figure out afterwards. In any event, this isn’t the first time that Cain has fumbled on a foreign policy issue. During the first debate, he essentially said that he would tell us his plan for Afghanistan after we elected him. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, he had no idea what the Palestinian Right of Return was, although to his credit he did admit several days later that he made a mistake there. It will be interesting to see how he holds up on the stage in New Hampshire on Monday when the topic turns to foreign policy. So far, it’s pretty clear he needs to hit the briefing books.
@Doug:
Come now, all we need is a serious plan.
What more do you need to know?
The analogies to Nixon’s secret plan to end the war are rather obvious
See, that’s how we kill North Korea’s nuclear program, too: by lowering the price of the oil they, um, don’t produce.
He’s a pizza guy and a talk radio loudmouth. He knows less about politics and foreign policy than I do.
What’s the problem? You all seem fine with Obama having the same policies and he’s actually the president.
Falze,
Please tell me where in this post I said anything about what I thought of Obama or his foreign policy. If you’ve read anything I’ve written here you’d know that I have serious problems with his policies in Libya, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
There’s nothing wrong with criticizing someone like Cain, especially when it’s so obvious they have no idea what they’re talking about in this area.
An this is the root of vulgar journalistic “objectivity.” People who think that since you wrote something bad about X you need to immediately write something good about Y.. Or that, in issues of science, you need to balance out a politically sensitive science issues by, after summarizing the majority consensus, writing “of course, other scientists disagree.”
And if you don’t practice that sort of “objectivity” then clearly you’re a partisan hack.
Thankfully, this particular bane on reporting and commentary hasn’t infected most major blogs.
Don’t you know, Doug? If you criticize a Republican who is loved by the wingnuts, that means you love Obama. QED.
McCain had a secret plan too, that worked great for him.
I had totally forgotten about McCain’s secret plan. To capture Osama Bin Laden. Maybe he finally told Obama what it was? Maybe McCain is the unsung hero? 😉
I don’t believe I am doing this but BillO did positively surprise me in this interview. (http://nation.foxnews.com/herman-cain/2011/06/09/herman-cains-show-stopping-factor-performance)
He did take Cain to the woodshed on the economy and opened the segment with a priceless “tribute” from Colbert. In other words, he thinks Cain is a joke.
Have you noticed the foreign policy of the current Pres.? Seems bozo the Pres. favors Argentina and Hugo Chavez’s policies over that of the people who populate the Falkland Islands. How about his treasonous policy of sharing missle defense secrets with the Russians? His policy with regard to Lybia buy lack of action concerning Syria or Iran. Looks like Carter II has given Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood. Wonder if Obama is a charter member, after all George Stephanopolous had to remind Obama his was a christian not a muslim. Freudian slip, no doubt. Bet Doug joined the Washington Post in sifting through Palins emails. Guess the info about Weiner talking his talk to underage girls is less important than sifting through the mail of someone who is not an office holder and has not stated she intends to run for office. If the press had done to Obama what they are doing to Palin, we would have a different President as I suggest a more managable debt. Over 200 years to get to 8 trillion in debt. A little over 2 years to nearly double it. Just how stupid are liberals?
Cain is attracting quite a bit of attention from the Internet left; disproportionate attention, in fact, when you consider that Cain is a minor candidate who won’t be the nominee. Truth be told, however, this is not surprising.
Leftists simply can’t deal with black conservative Republicans. It literally makes them loopy. Well, even more loopy than they are in their natural state. We’ve seen this time and time again. Condi Rice? Leftists blew their gaskets. Clarence Thomas? Hell, it’s 20 years later and leftists still are in a funk. J.D. Watts? Lynn Swann? Michael Steele? Janice Rogers Brown? So on, so forth. Same thing with Cain. Every foible. Every mistake. Every missed or parsed word. Every ambiguity. Leftists instictively have and will continue loudly to point these out and then to engage in their typically-glib, typically-sanctimonious criticism. A forensic psychiatrist would be able to expound on this further, but in layman’s terms it’s a function of so many bubbles and memes being burst all at once that any trace of sentient processing is left by the wayside.
Just the ones that are clueless.
Happy to be of help…