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Herman Cain Still Proudly Ignorant on Foreign Policy
Commentary ^ | Jonathan S. Tobin

Posted on 10/16/2011 11:25:34 AM PDT by Def Conservative

When pressed for answers today on Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, the best Cain could do was to repeat his mantra that he would consult experts and then figure it out. Which is to say that he knows he hasn’t a clue but hopes no one will care. The program also produced Cain’s admission that he had no familiarity with the neoconservative movement. While being a subscriber to COMMENTARY isn’t a requirement for the presidency, the idea that someone running for that office had not even heard the term suggests that Cain is not only bereft of foreign policy experience, he apparently has never even read much about it.

As COMMENTARY readers know, neoconservatism has a long and honorable history as the movement that helped mobilize the country to oppose détente and the Soviet Union as well as having played a key role in critiquing the failures of the welfare state. During the Bush administration, leftists used the word as an epithet seeking to demonize those who believed not only in the need to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in the whole idea of promoting democracy abroad. After all that, it truly says something about a public figure that would admit to never having heard the word or to know what it might mean.

(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; booktour; cain; campaign; hermancain; iran; iraq; politics
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1 posted on 10/16/2011 11:25:36 AM PDT by Def Conservative
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To: Def Conservative

yeah because electing Presidents who claim to have all the answers like both Bush’s and Clinton/Obama, instead of admitting they don’t have all the answers like Cain has worked SO well for us./s


2 posted on 10/16/2011 11:27:13 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)
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To: Def Conservative

Yes, Obama was had so much more expertise in foriegn policy when he was running for president.

Sheez. . . .


3 posted on 10/16/2011 11:27:37 AM PDT by TheConservator ("I spent my life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, but not men.")
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To: Def Conservative

A lot of folks don’t like his 9,9,9 plan. Every other candidate has shown nothing but a 0,0,0 plan.

The man at least looks for real solutiions instead of just spewing more garbage.


4 posted on 10/16/2011 11:29:21 AM PDT by boycott (CAL)
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To: Def Conservative
and somehow Zero wasn't?
5 posted on 10/16/2011 11:29:21 AM PDT by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Def Conservative
So Mr Tobin,

How is getting us involved in 5 endless wars, the way the current Political class has done, proven their “smarts” on Foreign policy?

6 posted on 10/16/2011 11:29:31 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (Giving more money to DC to fix the Debt is like giving free drugs to addicts think it will cure them)
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To: Def Conservative
Which is to say that he knows he hasn’t a clue but hopes no one will care.

He is probably right in thinking that. This is going to be a straight up economy election like we have never had before. Foreign Policy will be pretty far down on the list this go round.

7 posted on 10/16/2011 11:29:45 AM PDT by Lazlo in PA (Now living in a newly minted Red State.)
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To: TheConservator
Yes, Obama was had so much more expertise in foriegn policy when he was running for president.

Sure he had.

After all, he'd been to Indonesia, Kenya and Pock-ee-stahn.

8 posted on 10/16/2011 11:30:34 AM PDT by Ole Okie (Drill, baby, drill!)
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To: Def Conservative

I’ll take proudly ignorant over ignorantly proud any day!!!!!


9 posted on 10/16/2011 11:30:40 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
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To: MNJohnnie
yeah because electing Presidents who claim to have all the answers like both Bush’s and Clinton/Obama, instead of admitting they don’t have all the answers like Cain has worked SO well for us

Right. So the new Caine Rule for Foreign Policy is: "We've tried smart. Let's try stupid for a change."

10 posted on 10/16/2011 11:31:37 AM PDT by behzinlea
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To: TheConservator

Excuse me are you saying that OBAMA’S lack of experience is the marker for electing yet ANOTHER inexperienced unqualified President. I DON’T THINK SO.


11 posted on 10/16/2011 11:32:05 AM PDT by marty60
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To: C. Edmund Wright

See #10.


12 posted on 10/16/2011 11:33:03 AM PDT by behzinlea
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To: Def Conservative

Yeah, like Carter, Clinton, and the Cretin-in-Chief are geniuses in this area.

Face it political types, your trade is just about entirely populated by folks who are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Else, they’d be doing some useful for society.

And, of course, Cain has done many useful things already.

Jealous, perhaps?


13 posted on 10/16/2011 11:33:03 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Def Conservative
While being a subscriber to COMMENTARY isn’t a requirement for the presidency ...

The Republican establishment is outraged that Cain doesn't read the stuff that they read, and doesn't subscribe to their pet publishing project.

14 posted on 10/16/2011 11:33:07 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (I won't vote for Romney. I won't vote for Perry.)
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To: behzinlea

I saw number 10 — and if you stand by that, you are just breathtakingly ignorant.

If you retract 10, we can talk.


15 posted on 10/16/2011 11:35:05 AM PDT by C. Edmund Wright
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To: Def Conservative

I’m not saying I’m willing to jump on the Cain bandwagon, but I like the idea of a candidate more interested in domestic policy than in foreign policy. He’s running as president of the U.S. and not president of Israel or president of Europe or president of the Middle East, and I’d like him to concentrate on our problems before the problems in other countries.


16 posted on 10/16/2011 11:35:40 AM PDT by SoJoCo
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To: Def Conservative

Herm will see how the UN works :-)

Asked what he thinks about the country’s relationship with the United Nations, Cain said: “I want to give the UN a chance to work. But it does not work in the way it ought to be working right now.”

Should United States withdraw from the organization? “No, because I want to take a look at the situation,” he said. “I want to take a look at how it is structured. I know how it is structured generally speaking, but no, I’m not ready to just throw the baby out with the bath water yet.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/13/after-running-pizza-chain-cain-says-he-can-make-foreign-policy-decisions/#ixzz1ayG96pUW


17 posted on 10/16/2011 11:36:24 AM PDT by marty60
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To: Def Conservative

Poor Little Commentary got their feelings hurt? What a shame.

Best definition of a “neo-conservative” I ever heard was: “a Liberal who just got mugged.”

They are generally former Democrats — predominately Jewish — who are mediocre, at best, on social issues, but oh-so-quick to interject US forces around the world in wars they deem appropriate. They love Romney.

Only thing is: They usually choose the places they want us to intervene (Iraq, Afghanistan), while ignoring others (e.g., Cote d’Ivoire, Congo, etc) that would be equally worthy of our intervention, if the goal is to save lives and prevent the metastatic spread (via arms) of Islam across the African continent.

Of course, Ron Paul would say: Let’s stay out of all these places. Sometimes I wonder if he is not correct.


18 posted on 10/16/2011 11:36:27 AM PDT by man_in_tx
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To: Cheerio
Democratic candidates get a pass, because the media assumes they are brilliant. Remember in 2000 how George W. Bush was given a "pop quiz" asking him to identify the leaders of 4 nations (one of them not even an independent country but a rebellious province in Russia)--because he knew only one or two of them, he was widely ridiculed. I mean, there are only 190+ independent countries and maybe a dozen or two would-be independent countries, so how hard can it be to have the current leaders' names at your fingertips?

Of course Gore wasn't subjected to that quiz.

19 posted on 10/16/2011 11:36:31 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Def Conservative
>Herman Cain Still Proudly Ignorant on Foreign Policy"

Jug-ears Knows All and Does no Wrong

20 posted on 10/16/2011 11:38:00 AM PDT by rawcatslyentist (It is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; ~Vattel's Law of Nations)
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