At What Point Will Herman Cain Be Held To Sarah Palin Standards?

Business Insider ^ | Nov. 2, 2011 | Glynnis MacNicol

[presidio9]

It's pretty clear that this Herman Cain harassment story does not have any legs. Of the truly damaging kind, anyway. (Unless, of course, this new employee can provide any actual details.)

Here's what appears to be getting lost in that story. Herman Cain's continuing ignorance on foreign policy.

Sure the initial ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan remark made for good late night fodder. But Cain's remarks regarding foreign policy in the last 24 hours should be sounding alarm bells. And they aren't.

Imagine for a moment (as Joe Scarborough did this morning) that Sarah Palin had said in an interview that she was worried about China as a military threat because they've "indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have."

Cain said that last night on PBS. China has had nuclear capability since 1964.

Or declared it was her intention to send war ships into the Persian Gulf and get in a shooting war with Iran. As Cain did on O'Reilly last night.

Palin, meanwhile, was excoriated (and rightly so) for telling Katie Couric she reads "all the papers" and that her foreign policy experience was rooted in the fact Alaska was bordered by foreign countries (hence the SNL line "I can see Alaska from my house").

That interview was so damaging it essentially ended Palin's (and McCain's) White House run. One wonders if Cain would even make headline for anything so mundane.

It's true that Cain is not the official nominee as Palin was. But he has now sustained his lead in the polls for so long that he needs to be treated with some gravitas. Outside of MSNBC the media has been slow to shift to

[moose-matson]

If Cain doesn’t know much about China’s nuclear capabilities, and it is entirely possible that he doesn’t, my answer is “So what?”

______________________________________

Sorry but there is a difference between not knowing much and not knowing anything about the nuclear capabilities of our probable number one opponent for trhe remainder of this century. While one would not expect him to know the President of every back-water country it is unsettling that he sees China as trying to acquire the nuclear capability that they have had for almost fifty years. That kind of stuff will get him chewed up in a general election debate.

[SatinDoll]

He isn’t in general election debates yet.

[W. W. SMITH]

OK..................Screwed up big time. All this time I thought he was katie’s father.

so where did the hatred I read come from? It was all there hatred of Alaska, hatred of the people of Alaska, and hatred to the core of Palin?

[GatorGirl]

Tim Tebow....me likey!

If Cain isn’t nominated I’m writing in Tebow!

Thanks for the idea.

[okie01]

so where did the hatred I read come from? It was all there hatred of Alaska, hatred of the people of Alaska, and hatred to the core of Palin?

It's not inconcivable that the hatred stemmed from being a liberal.

As a liberal, Katie would hate Palin. As a liberal woman, Katie would really, really hate Palin.

And, as Palin was from Alaska, Katie would hate Alaska and all who lived there.

If there was more to it than that, I've no idea what it might've been.

[TigersEye]

The phrase “nuclear capability,” applied to a nation, refers to its military’s possession of nuclear weapons.

Apart from the extreme nitpicking going on there who decided the above laughable criterion? Nuclear powered ships aren't considered a part of a country's 'nuclear capability?'

[EDINVA]

“...Tim Tebow will be available in January”

Of what year ???? It would have to be January of 2024, the first election after he turns 35, and he was born in the Philippines. Otherwise, GREAT idea !!

[rob777]

Apparently, you stopped reading too soon:

"However, tonight on Fox News, Cain’s chief of staff, Mark Block, explained that Cain was, in an inelegant formulation, referring to “the nuclear capability China is getting for their submarines and aircraft carriers.” But this clarification doesn’t do much to help Cain: China launched its first nuclear submarine, part of the Han-class of attack boats, in 1974. In 2004, it launched its class of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile subs, which are capable of launching the strategic nuclear weapons China already had.

Moreover, Cain erred in saying that China is developing “more carriers like we have”: The Chinese navy currently has no carriers, except for an essentially unarmed rusting hulk, the Varyag, purchased from Russia and now on sea trials for training purposes. China is starting to develop aircraft carriers, but, at first, they will be conventionally powered, not nuclear, ships. This is according to the Chinese themselves: They are planning to build two 50–60,000-ton mid-sized aircraft carriers, similar to the Queen Elizabeth–class carriers that the United Kingdom is currently developing, with nuclear- powered ships possibly to come later. Nuclear aircraft carriers would, unlike the production of more nuclear submarines (on which the intelligence remains murky), be a big step for China toward a blue-water navy, meaning one with an independent global range. A nuclear-powered Chinese carrier would be extremely worrisome, but it is not a near-term possibility for China, the rest of whose navy is nowhere near blue-water capability."

[TigersEye]

That was the nitpicking I was referring to. The funny thing is it essentially contradicts itself on nearly every point.

[grey_whiskers]

Cain wandered around on the China nuclear thing and gave an opening to the “he doesn’t even know...” about China.

Only to you Perry trolls.

Read the original post here and get up to speed.

Cheers!

[presidio9]

Hardly. Hale Boggs was Cokie Roberts dad, not Katie Couric's.

Oh snap!

[presidio9]

If Cain isn’t nominated I’m writing in Tebow!

Cute idea, but in the two party system we are stuck with, any failure to vote for the Republican nominee (including in favor of writing for a legitimate third party candidate) is essentially a vote for Barak Obama.

[GatorGirl]

I know....I was kidding.

[Erik Latranyi]

If foreign policy experience is important, I hope all of you voted for Gore in 2000 over Bush!

[mikhailovich]

Herman Cain is sort of the republican version of Barack Obama, in the sense that everyone thinks he's kind of cute and gives him a pass when he fumbles the ball on an issue. We have to use big padded gloves on him. "Hell, he's never been a politician, man. Cut him some slack, he'll learn."

I don't buy into that garbage with either Obama or Cain. We elected an inexperienced rookie in 2008 and we're about to do it again? Two back-to-back guys with virtually no experience in government? One, a community organizer and professor (with minimal junior Senator credentials,) and another who led up a bunch of fast food companies that employed predominantly uneducated minimum wage workers.

I think Americans are dumber than hell. That's what I believe.