The Herman Cain sex allegations just make me very sad. I’ve deliberately avoided focusing on the issue or writing much about it, but it’s impossible to avoid the headlines.
I don’t think he’s qualified to be president, and even when he was briefly the non-Romney flavor of the week, before the accusations, I never thought there was any chance he would get the nomination. His “9-9-9” tax plan is a slogan masquerading as a policy proposal, and he obviously doesn’t know or care much about foreign relations — the area of a president’s duties that matters the most.
But I could see him as a cabinet secretary — maybe the Commerce Department. Just not in a Perry administration.
I don’t know whether the sex allegations are true or not, and since he’s not going to be the nominee, I don’t feel a need to decide. But there are too many accusers for him to shake all of them off. Bill Clinton’s serial philandering was at least as objectionable as the accusations against Cain — but Clinton will be remembered more for his presidency than for his inability to keep his pants zipped.
Cain is going to be remembered for the sex stuff. I would much rather have him remembered as the Tea Party favorite who disproved the silly racism charges against that movement.
(Photo from Cain campaign website)
Tea partiers aren’t racist. Just immigrant-phobic. I’m being serious. That isn’t racist. It is dumb and diseconomic because there is always space and a reason for an underclass in a growing and prosperous country. For me , I have no idea why they would put any energy into avoiding taxes for the rich: certainly restoring the Clinton-era balance of taxes, no deficits, and no active wars would be in their interest. On the immigrant issue, I’d prefer the apples get picked in Colorado, and the San Diego area agriculture get done in San Diego rather than not.
Dano, I more or less agree. (Stop the presses.)
Specifically, I think it absolutely is possible to be anti-immigration without being racist. Reasonable people can disagree about whether more or less immigration would be better for the country. But crying racism in every discussion of immigration — as some on the Left are wont to do — is simple-minded and wrong.