1. Misstatements on his campaign declaration announcement confusing the Constitution -- held so holy by the Tea Party -- and the Declaration of Independence.
2. On Fox News on Sunday with Chris Wallace, apparently doesn't know what the phrase "right of return" means in relation to Israel and the Palestinians, and when it's explained to him, says: "I don't think they have a big problem with people returning." That would come as a big surprise to Netanyahu.
3. Again with Wallace on FNS, asked what he would do in Afghanistan, he replies: "The right approach is: the day I'm elected president, I will start on that plan such that the day I was sworn in, I will be able to implement the plan." for details, he responds: "I think it is disingenuous to tell the American people what I would do when I don't have the intelligence information. I don't have all of the factors that are affecting this particular situation."
4. The national debt. He has what media have dubbed "the Cain plan." but on FNS, Can admitted that "the Cain plan" can't work because Congress have dropped the ball and it's now too late. So, two minutes into the interview, he admits that his plan for the debt can't work.
Cain's a goner. Although he completely won over a Frank Luntz focus group at the South Carolina debates, he has no substance to go with that rich baritone voice.
On the campaign announcement, Ian Millhiser has an article at ThinkProgress which includes the following clip:
Unfortunately, our friend confuses the Constitution -- which the Tea Baggers revere so much and insist must be followed but isn't -- with the Declaration of Independence.
CAIN: We don’t need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to reread the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. … And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that, so for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don’t want us to go by the Constitution, there’s a little section in there that talks about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”More on Cain's foolishness after the jump.
You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believed in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” don’t stop there, keep reading. Cause that’s when it says “when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” We’ve got some altering and some abolishing to do!
Cain really should have taken his own advice, however, before he decided to lecture the entire country about the Constitution. The phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution’s text. Nor does the Constitution include a phrase about the right of the people to alter or abolish a government that is destructive of their ideals. Both of those phrases appear in the Declaration of Independence, which, in case Mr. Cain is not aware, is actually an entirely different document than the Constitution — written over ten years earlier.
Cain demonstrates the cluelessness that seems to be the default position of non-politicians running for office: They don't comprehend the issues. There's an attitude that a skilled executive can run the government because they're good at delegating responsibility and making decisions. Career politicians, on the other hand, have usually studied the issues they're talking about (with some exceptions, like Alan Simpson and the Catfood Commission). They don't say they have an economic plan which would have been great but which will now no longer work, or that they have no clue what to do in Afghanistan but will give it their full attention once they know something about it.
And here's Jason Linkins live-blogging Fox News Sunday and the Cain interview:
The good news is that Herman Cain, pizza dude and heart of the South Carolina GOP, is here to tell us about his path to the White House. He will free us from debt and legislation that "has been forced down our throats." Yes, as always, the legitimate procedure by which bills are made into law is best likened to prison sodomy. He will also stimulate aggregate demand and reverse the economy with a mixture of hoodoo and drilling holes in the ground.
He doesn't want to make a deal on the debt ceiling. He seemed to want to actually just pay the Chinese off, a la Pat Toomey. Now he just thinks that we should pay the interest on the debt, make no cuts to military spending, pay out Social Security and Medicare, and then, "look at everything else." And that's where you "start" cutting. Ahh, this guy already sounds like a Washington drone!
He calls this the "Cain plan," and it's basically called, "the plan that everyone in the Beltway has when they want to get elected and you need old people to vote for you."
Cain says that the market will respond negatively to avoiding a debt ceiling disaster. Congress, you see, "allowed themselves to get in between a rock and a hard place." Now we have to literally go back in time to avert disaster, I guess! That's the only way the "Cain plan" will work. Okay, I get it, Cain's plan is the thing he would have liked to have done had everyone else done something different, many years ago.
Wallace is having trouble parsing all of Cain's tense changes, and I can hardly blame him. "But is the Cain plan right, now?" Cain says, "The Cain plan can't work now." WHAT? "It cannot work now, simply because they waited too long...that's not leadership."
Wow. That was awesome. Herman Cain has a plan that will fix everything, except it won't work, because "they" waited too long to implement it. (I guess "they" should have known years ago that there was an awesome plan, just sitting there, waiting to be put on a pizza.)
Anyway, he wants to have a national sales tax of 23% on everything, which will replace the federal income tax and payroll tax. Wallace says that the Bush advisory panel on tax reform looked at that and determined that 23% was too low a rate, and that it would raise taxes on middle class income earners. Cain says "they were dead wrong." So, why, exactly? Cain says that they "changed some assumptions in the bill." What assumptions? Oh, you are supposed to talk to the fans of this plan, and they will tell you it's awesome.
Cain says that Obama threw Israel under the bus, where hopefully they were cushioned by the billions of dollars we sent them, you know? What would Cain offer the Palestinians? "Nothing." Cain says he's not convinced the Palestinians are interested in peace, or that they have a geniune offer. To Cain, the Palestinians have always "pushed for more and more and more." Hmmm. I think the rap on the Palestinians is that they keep terrorizing Israel, and the rap on Israel is that they're the ones who keep snatching up all the farmable land in the area. The Cain plan, in essence, is to sit back and let the relationship fester.
What about the "right of return?" Oh, Herman Cain doesn't know what the frack you're talking about, Chris Wallace! Wallace asks and Cain stares at him and robotically repeats "The right of return" twice until Wallace says, "The Palestinian right of return." "That's something that should be negotiated," Cain says. He says that twice. Cain says that Palestinians should be allowed to return, but "not under Palestinian conditions." [Of course, he also says "I don't think they have a big problem with people returning."]
What about Cain's plan for Afghanistan? He will "make the right approach to make the right decision," but he won't be able to start working on it until he wins the election and can get intelligence. Which is all well and good, but you should be able to answer the broad question, "Do you prefer a counter-insurgent approach or a counter-terrorism approach?"
Wow. Herman Cain has $13 cash on hand? He says he will open a new PAC on July 15. He won't tell Chris how much money is in the account for that new PAC because he "doesn't want the competition to know." "But we do need more." So there you have it. Vote Herman Cain! He has a plan to fix everything that will no longer work because "they" already screwed things up too badly!
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