A prominent conservative on Twitter, playing to the whole right-side Twittersphere, writes, “Time for Cain to go away. Continuous smoke is nearly as bad as fire.”
Without getting into the specifics of Cain accusations, let me start by saying this is simply not so — and in fact is precisely the kind of dangerous thinking that will determine our ideological fate.* “Continuous smoke” may prove nearly as bad as fire to those intent on cursing the smoke. But if it’s you who’s being falsely accused of having set a fire, clearing that smoke long enough to understand where exactly it’s coming from is rather important to you, I dare say.
Conservatives arguing that the truth is immaterial, that perception is reality — or, at the very least, that because your optics are bad, you need to think of the Greater Good and sacrifice your individual autonomy on its altar — are adopting the left’s epistemological paradigm.
Perception is not reality. That is, perception only comes to count as reality to the extent that we accept that formulation and surrender to it — be it out of expedience, intellectual laziness, or a desire to rationalize our unwillingness to endure a prolonged fight over what some consider to be a marginal point.
Surrendering to it institutionalizes it. And once it’s institutionalized it functions as a fait accompli.
Even Richard Rorty, one of the preeminent philosophers of postmodern thought, distinguished between things as they are and “truths” irretrievably weakened by our structural need to express them in a second-order representational system. That is, language.
But such a pedestrian observation — that language is a step removed from the reality it seeks to signal and signify — doesn’t magically cause reality to disappear.
If there’s a fire there’s a fire. Smoke only signals the possibility of a fire.
Fight for reality. Or else you are fighting on a playing field set up by the left to reduce reality to a power struggle over narrative dominance.
And in that battle, the individual always loses to the collective.
*yesterday I was cast as some sort of Cainiac True Believer rather than what I actually am — a conservative / classical liberal who refuses to let the Left set the rules for how we come to see reality. Recall that when Cain accepted the left’s framing of the Perry “Niggerhead” story, I was quite hard on him — and for precisely the same reason I’ve been defending Cain against thinly-sourced hit pieces (as well as against those on “our” side who have suddenly determined that Politico is a paragon of journalistic ethics).
If it comforts certain “reasonable” GOP boosters to dismiss me as an hysterical True Believer who doesn’t understand the ways of politics and is himself enthralled by charismats, so be it. But as I said yesterday, what I’ve been fighting for is the IDEA of a candidate — that is, for the notion that we can have as legitimate candidates those who have traveled non-traditional political paths, who haven’t gone to the Kennedy School or practiced polishing up their political bromides for so long that they’ve become rote, meaningless, perfunctory utterances that can be readily tweaked for each potential audience.
That is, I’ve been fighting the status quo — and in so doing, carrying the flag of the TEA Party.
What’s surprising is just how many of our “conservative” opinion leaders believe that to do so marks you as a nutjob fringe extremist — not a too different view, mind you, as the one shared by both the President, the Democrats, and many in the GOP establishment.
It’s clarifying.
These observations of mine are not “fundamentally unserious.” They are paramount. Until we save the underlying structure, it doesn’t matter who gets to choose the furniture. Because the whole damned thing will eventually collapse on itself — at which point, anybody living it in gets trapped beneath the rubble.
Which, fuck that.
I hear you. But unfortunately the damage is done to Team Cain.
Have these people not learned a goddamned thing from the Global Warming hoax? That includes you, Joe.
The damage is only permanent if we make it so.
“The damage is done” — you really don’t understand what Jeff’s saying, do you? You “hear” him, but do not comprehend.
but by the same token the chippie smoke shouldn’t be used to obscure the fact that Mr. Cain’s campaign had already stumbled really a lot badly… he was following the same trajectory as Perry, really
and that is not a trajectory of Win
Embracing the conventional wisdom (archetype: Bill O’Reilly on the cable, AoS on the internet) Joe hears you Jeff. Be happy.
Thinking is hard business, mostly easy to skip for believing something, anything — whatever — so that’s what people do. Give ’em candy and they’ll take it.
one candy you might could give them is Gustaf’s Traditional Dutch Double Salt Licorice
yum!
Until it is.
Man, if only Mr. Cain could entice Mr. Axelrod to run his campaign for him…
That guy can bury anything.
If only he were a member of the permanent political class Pablo.
hf once again shows its lack of ability to read, consider, and comprehend.
I could actually post that to each of Jeff’s comments threads and not be wrong too many times.
Mr. Shapiro would be better off thanking the rest of the field for not smoking. Yet.
I tend to think of this less as smoke and more like fog from stage props being sold as smoke to the hoi polloi.
We’ve got trouble right here in River City, and that starts with T and that rhymes with G, oh, P as well.
These tactics will continue to be used as long as they work.
Oh, and thanks for the excellent distallation of perception not being reality. Perception is reality is one of the more pernicious concepts out there.
it’s just time to get this show on the road… this whole quest for the presidency thing on the Team R side started like a hundred years ago
people have had plenty of time to decide if they cotton to this one or that one
and if they haven’t chop chop
So hop in your wayforward machine chop chop
fucking idiot
Good thing ‘feets can’t for reals dismiss candidates quite so easily, or decide for us who is and who is not suitable.
I mean, could president hoochie possibly be worse than the incumbent?
*
we just need to get rid of Obama – none of these Team R ones this time around are top-tier candidates
and if Team R gets through this without nominating Romney then yay they’ll have made the best of a really bad situation
so they need to get to it, and some of these loser-assed vanity candidates need to get out of the race – Perry can’t make the sentences no way he’s gonna win… Cain has a robust chippie problem plus he suffers from foreign policy-induced narcolepsy … whereas Santorum suffers from chronic moral constipation… and Bachmann is a loon.
These people are wasting everybody’s time energy and money.
Slart, “perception is reality” is hf’s bag, baby. It must be his marketing background, but I always thought it interesting (and at once thought that hf was a Jeff sock puppet to be an obvious “perception is reality” example) Jeff’s truisms on the importance of language and the truth and hf’s clear disdain for it.
As to the brilliant post, hear hear! Hell, I won’t vote for Cain, but Jeff, and he isn’t campaigning for Cain but rather campaigning for the truth, skewers the less than critical thinkers brilliantly. Well done.
Pablo, I assume that these accusations are bullshit against Cain. But I am starting to have my doubts about this last one. That said, I do not see him pulling this off. I hope I am wrong, I am sure as hell not into a choice of Romney and Gingrich, I think Cain would make a decent president, but I am going off the signals coming from Team Cain. When he is questioning whether or not to fight–it gives one pause as a supporter. If Cain was saying I am in till the end, these are lies and this thing is bigger than me so I am staying in unequivocally, then I would support that. The message is bigger than any one candidate.
Pablo, it is up to Herman Cain now. Hey, even lame John McCain bounced back in 2008 when his campaign was on the skids.
However, dumbbot, they are the candidates we have right now. Unless you have Abraham Lincoln all zombied up and ready to go?
Et tu, Allen?
Okay he has a conflict of interest.
…and to anyone who abandons him because he didn’t “handle” it well enough to suit those who were never in his corner to begin with.
If someone behaves as if his enemy is correct despite knowing otherwise, he himself has joined the enemy.
My perception Mr. Infidel is that Newt and Romney are the only ones what have evinced an aptitude for this sad sorry game. Romney is a feckless unprincipled coward and Newt is a ponce with a slutty wife. I’d happily vote for either of them to get rid of that piece of shit in our little white house.
Bullshit. It’s his stupidity.
Dear Patriots and Supporters,
As you probably heard yesterday, a troubled Atlanta business woman used national media outlets to promulgate a fabricated, unsubstantiated story about a 13 year affair with me. I am writing you today to assure you that this woman’s story is completely false.
I do know Ms. White. I have helped her financially at times over the past few years, just as I have helped many friends and acquaintances throughout the years. I thought Ms. White was a friend in need of a supportive hand to better her life.
Ms. White has made it apparent that she was abusing the friendship.
But now I am asking for your friendship. I am also asking for your prayers and support. This is a trying time for my family, my campaign, and for me. It is also a trying time for our country as we are all distracted from the truly important issues facing our nation.
This evening I have an important speaking engagement at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where I will be outlining my foreign policy and national security plan. While recent events have taken a toll on me, the people in the audience this evening will not know it. I will deliver my message with vigor and enthusiasm.
Let me assure you, I am not deterred. America’s future is too important. We will continue on this journey to make America great once again.
Thank you and God bless.
Sincerely,
Herman Cain
This is why we can’t have what we want —a genuine
reform-renewal-minded outsider instead of a nip-and-tuck-around-the-edges insider playing at being an outsider. Outsiders make the mistakes that insiders avoid and we get panicky about the less than perfectly polished optics.‘feets, you are damned lucky that the candidates don’t read what you write and that dueling is illegal. But, hell, it was for the protection of spineless cowards like you that it was MADE illegal.
Fuck that game. I’m not playing.
Pablo, don’t confuse the self-blinded with the facts.
Proving my point three minutes before I made it:
Yep. Insiders playing as outsiders.
I will continue to support Cain if he is willing to fight. He might start by getting a Grant and Sherman strategy going on his campaign.
Mostly I think that if I had thousands of people (among them hundreds who actively wanted to see me fail) discussing the ins and outs of everything I’ve done for the past ten years, there would be a lot of “bad optics” about me. Being as I’m, well, human. And not particularly trying to live to up to the Modern Inquisition’s standards of “good optics”.
“…the signals coming from Team Cain.”
Would those be the signals the Mainstream Media repeated endlessly yesterday — and repeats to this hour — that the Cain campaign’s reassessment is equivalent to preparing to leave the race? Yep, thought so.
Would that be the Mainstream Media that has yet to breathe so much as a word about this? Yep.
Someone I follow mentioned the 48 hour rule a few times about these latest claims and, as always, it makes good sense.
Towards Cain saying publicly that he’s reassessing his campaign? Sorry, that’s a bad idea. Doesn’t take insider political savvy to realize this. Cain has been high level executive for a long time. The guy can make mistakes that are simply mistakes and not examples of the insider/outsider issue.
No votes have been cast yet. Because of how things went in the 2008 primary the RNC was determined to not have one candidate or a pair lock up the race early. That is why they made the early primaries proportional and penalizing States that moved up their primaries earlier. Unless candidates drop out nothing will be decided until April or later.
It is the Democrats who want this decided as early as possible and want a RINO. They are the Party that loves to rape their enemies. Do not let them have their way with you.
It would be refreshing if everyone would finally realize that every position vehemently, tearfully defended, every policy espoused, expounded on endlessly, every “value” held out as the best of the best, all these are simply the means of the moment. They will be cast aside in a trice and just a quickly embraced warmly again. The casting and embracing both meaning the same thing, nothing.
Every “end” supposedly sought by the left is really a means toward the one true end. If it doesn’t serve to further that end it will be discarded, overnight. Only the main end counts, power. The world’s most addictive drug and always legal as its possessors frame what the law is.
Two wrote yesterday on examples but seem to fail at realizing exactly what they are seeing. They need to step back and widen their view both in space and time. Observing one stitch in isolation is no way to look at what a quilt is.
To fill out that thought, it’s also a mistake to not take Cain in his own extended context. He seems to say what he’s thinking. Plays possibilities out verbally. So, given that history, his saying that he’s reassessing his candidacy is a different type of statement than a similar one coming from someone with a history of always keeping their cards close to their chest.
Mistakes of that sort — nominally public relations errors — are one thing (and perfectly fine to take note of for the simple stupidities they are), whereas assigning a definitive spin to an ambiguous statement is another (since after all, the reason the public relations mistake is a mistake lays in the ease with which it allows for misuse to untoward purposes, isn’t it, and the assignation of a false spin is simply that.)
Agreed, sdferr. I suppose a related issue is that it’s harder to use words like mistake or misstep when other people are being so freakishly critical and/or dishonest. There are still those flogging the “he didn’t know China had nukes”, for instance.
I’m just thinking the best end what can be hoped for is not nominating Romney. And the way to clinch that is to winnow down the not-Romneys.
So… the fewer not-Romneys there are, the better the chance a not-Romney has to get the nomination??
o_O
yes it’s like when you mush bits of play-dough together to make a big giant play-dough man
The Deceptikon doesn’t have to make sense to blend in.
Dizzying in his logic, Darth.
If Not-Romney is Newt, what’s the point?
Other than Cain, what not-Romneys are still viable? Because I am not convinced that Newt is a not-Romney.
Jesus, Pablo, sometimes I wonder if maybe we aren’t the same person, lmfao.
hey speaking of stocking stuffers did you see you can still buy play-dough perfume?
*Doh* I mean sorry
Play-Doh
I guess if your assumption is if it’s Romney vs the field, that could apply. But since the Enemy are the ones who decided that it’s gotta be Romney or nobody, why would I accept that formulation?
Which, strangely and dare I say unexpectedly, gets us back to the topic of the post.
hf is fine playing the game. I get the sense most of us here are done. The question we’ll discover is how much of the general population is done playing the game, and if the midterms are any indication there are more than Our Betters® think.
I agree. I also think it’s important to bear in mind that in an outsider campaign, staffed largely with people who’s experience “playing” at this level is limited, there are going to be these kinds of mistakes, and thus we should temper our urge to go ohmigodwhataterribleterriblemistake to the extent we’re accustomed to going, faced as we usually are career politicians who’ve been preparing for their presidential bids the majority of their adult lives.
If you want to question the Cain candidacy, question 9-9-9, or whether his world view would cohere into a foreign policy, instead of questioning how adroitly he’s handled a “sex-scandal” that he legitimately believed he’d never have to deal with.*
*assuming here that he’s telling the truth
Agreed, Ernst.
That reassessing thing in context doesn’t sound like it does out of context:
Seems like they do a lot of reassessment over there at Cain HQ.
Nobody really knows for sure, do they Tyler, er…, B Moe?
Insty links some fella who “live blogged” one of Cain’s rallies today. Mr. Cain still shows a grasp of what I think are profoundly important truths about our politics, yet he simultaneously fails to raise his rhetorical vehicle to best communicate those truths in their fullness, to make them live and dance for his wider audience (i.e., those not in the hall, or not already in his camp or “on his side”), to enrobe those truths with poetry even, but instead is keeping himself to nearly simplistic language and a practically dull recitation. It’s a hard thing to have to ask — especially under the weight of the milling accusations — yet I think we’ve no choice but to ask of him (or of someone! If not Cain, who?) that he do better: that he find — in the principles themselves — the excellence, the beauty, the worthiness of our politics that the people demand, and the dire circumstances of the nation necessitate.
That’s a sign of a good executive, of course, Pablo.
I don’t recall him noting those reassessments on previous conference calls though. That’s the issue. When people are worried, make a decision and then tell them about it. Don’t tell them a decision will be coming later on.
(I’m really not trying to say this is a large issue. Or even a medium one.)
True, bh. I’m just saying that it isn’t the issue it has been portrayed as, perhaps especially on the right.
It’s a thing with Cain and his adviser peoples: they talk about their strategic thinking in public. They do it frequently, and apparently, without learning how dumb it is. They can simply quit and make themselves better. But in the meantime, we start wondering about them, where are their internal checks? How come they don’t demonstrate ordinary prudence?
If conservatives are sick of the #MSM, it’s time to stop being afraid and buying into the lies of who is & isn’t ‘electable’
Rush just finished saying the same thing.
What, now Rush is doing his show prep from Beck?
One thing about foreign policy. There are those demanding specifics, details, the kind of things that are more tactical. I have a question.
How can anyone who doesn’t receive classified national security briefings get specific in regards to foreign policy? You can espouse the general direction you wish to head in but the how to get there is mightily dependent on information that is not printed out in the daily paper, unless there is a Republican President and the paper is the New York Times that is.
The word around here (Wisco) is that Mark Block isn’t particularly talented, sdferr. Don’t know anything about that first hand (or even second hand) myself though so I have no idea if there is anything to it.
I think you’re supposed to pretend you already know everything, geoffb. If you want to “win” the “game”, that is.
Maybe because they’ve made a tactical decision to be transparent instead of just talking about transparency sdferr. Also, I’m sorry the Cain rhetoric doesn’t set your leg a-thrillin’.
This is kind of an example of what I think I’m getting at.
Rather than stop there at “I listen to the people,” Mr Cain could expand to talking about the reason it’s most important to do so in the context of our political ideas; why, in a proper Republic (and digress to explain the meaning of a Republic, why not?), the people must direct their representation and those representatives must heed their direction: cue a discussion of the cramming down of ObamaCare, for instance, or of NLRB blocking Boeing in South Carolina. But he ought easily to build — or re-build, as the case may be — the picture of the relation of principle with action, citing the sources of the principles and expanding on their intentions as he goes.
It isn’t about my leg Ernst, at least so far as I can see. It’s about people who have yet to understand where Mr Cain is coming from, or where he wants to go.
That was for 69, but it works for 70 as well.
Fuck it.
Didn’t these guys learn anything about crisis management from the Clinton years? Dudes, read their books!
“Let me get back to work for the American People.”
OT, Ann Coulter is back on my Christmas card list for calling McCain a douchebag on live teevee.
I just saw a little bit of a head line “what happens if Obama Wins”. I’d like to see someone else’s opinion of how the ultra-fast crash of once great nation might play out, so I clicked over. Lo and behold the story is actually about the much more important topic of what happens to the GOP, and it turns out that as long as it can be blamed on the TEA Party it’s OK – even good.
Mataconis is clearly not far enough outside the beltway.
All I’m saying is that Cain is not bound to answer your particular expectations for what he argues or how he frames his arguments; or mine, or anyone else’s for that matter.
OT is this an in kind campaign contribution?
Thanks Jeff, that was exactly my line of thinking when the famous 11 second Libya pause happened.
It seemed to me, our ‘just right of center conservative pragmatist’ friends that freaked over Cains ignorance only revealed their own cynicism and shallow thinking.
A candidate that actually gave a complicated question careful consideration before giving the answer that best expresses his view!
STUPID!
They need politicians that can immediately spout rote, meaningless, perfunctory utterances that sound good. There really are no higher marks for any true substance in the answer, since no one expects the politician to be held to it in the future anyway. It’s all about sounding presidential for the sound bite.
You know who sounds presidential as hell? Romney, thats who.
Leigh, thanks to Bubba, “I’m just tryin’ to do the work the American People blah blah blah” is synonymous with an admission of guilt. When it’s not a cudgel for the Democrats to beat the Republicans into letting them have their way with. Scoundrels, patriotism, last refuge and all that.
Am I surprised this post wasn’t retweeted and hasn’t been linked?
No. Not anymore.
If we close our eyes the boogeymens, they disappear!
I say what’s good for the goose, etc. I’ve been saying for years (not that anyone listens) that we need to beat them with their own clubs.
motionview, OTB should have been renamed “Those Darn Republican Candidates” some time ago. What was once an forthright, if establishment, center-right site has degenerated into sniping at whomever may actually have a chance to unseat Obama. And their comment threads, my, oh my, oh my. It’s really sad.
Hell, I LIKE that Cain has to take a few seconds and collect a thought or two when posed a difficult question…that, for the last 40 generations or so, was considered the mark of a wise person. That he trips up with his tongue, or misplaces a fact, or understates something….you try living in front of a crowd, talking nonstop, always answering questions, half of which are designed to trip you up anyhow.
I don’t believe a word he says about not having an affair with that woman though. But, I’m not looking for perfect or slick, I’m looking for best-thing-in-America’s-long-term-interest. Not pretty, but there it is.
BTW, not that he is looking for a hat tip, but I’d argue JG has probably never been stronger than he has over the past few days. The passage that LBascom highlites is an example.
It’s hard to become insane again leigh.
I thought she said “dickweed”, not “douchebag”
Not that it changes anything re: your holiday wishes
“I don’t believe a word he says about not having an affair with that woman though”
Well, if you have to pick one of them to believe without(so far) proof, that’s cool.
Just know your pick is based on faith in your own intuitive talents, not on truth. Because no one but those two know the truth.
Unless you saw video I mean.
Retweeted to my huge following of 46.
LBascom, your #78 is one reason I think all campaigning should be done in written form. When the main distinctive about a candidate is “they look good on TV”, or “their voice is so screechy”, the elections become nothing but American X Idol Factor With The Stars.
One of the reasons I don’t watch debates or speeches is because I always feel like I am listening to someone talk to a group of children. Then I realize that is by design and just get even more depressed.
Everyone needs to watch “The Candidate” with Robert Redford.
Nope, no video…thankfully.
Just a pretty strong feeling that when confronted with a blatantly false declaration by a woman he only gave money to for reasons of personal charity, charges that it need hardly be said could well end his political career, he might have a bit more to say about it other than, “No, I did not.” But, maybe that’s how he rolls.
I’ll vote for him either way, if he stays in.
“I start with a man, then take away reason and accountability”
Everyone needs to watch “The Candidate” with Robert Redford.
I’d rather everyone watch State of the Union with Tracy and Hepburn.
What else would you say about something that didn’t happen, other than it didn’t happen?
Well, as a wag once said, “nothing confirms a public accusation like a public denial.”
Who was that wag? LBJ?
A young woman of sharp mind and easy virtue I knew back in the day when sharp minds and easy virtue held almost as much appeal as did perky tits, long brunette hair and even longer legs.
What makes her more believable than him, Roddy?
Spill.
McGehee, it’s ‘cuz he didn’t react like any innocent man would.
There’s a formula all innocent people abide by, or something.
What are you damn peons getting so get up about anyway?
McGehee:
When you’re running for POTUS, and something comes out that will scuttle your campaign and its total, unadulterated BS, you fight it and you make exceptionally clear that–to use this example–you have never, ever come near that woman with your pants off. You call her out, demand evidence, receipts, dates/times, whatever. You get into it. It matters. You are the anti-Obama, you’re hustling for SoCon support, you’re a right guy.
Not only because you might be looking at a divorce and estranged kids in a few weeks but because it might get in the way of you and the podium in January ’13. Think of your own life and career. If the girl down the hall in accounting who you’d seen eight times in three years (and you had never more than smiled to her at the elevator) accuses you of stalking her and sending dirty E-mails, I’m supposing you’d be a little more engaged with things when HR questioned you than a “No, hey, wrong guy. We done here?” You’d tell them to produce the proof that you’d done anything of the sort, you’d tell them to look at your hard drive, cell-phone, whatever it took. Level head, hot head, it didn’t matter. If you were wronged and the stakes were big, you’d work and let the PC police in HR know they had a Tawana Brawley on their hands. You might have your lawyer drop a note suggesting that if this went farther, Mr. McGehee is going to fight back and fighters get paid.
http://www.nysun.com/business/defense-fighting-back-in-spitzers-first-market/8092/
I covered the case above when I was at a paper called the NY Sun and, i think, it was the first MSM investigative piece to look at SPitzer’s methodology and conclude: Something might really be off here. (In retrospect, I wish’d I’d done a lot more.) This guy, a nobody who had little money, sold his house and borrowed money from relatives to fund his defense. In the end, he fought Spitzer so hard that the AG’s attorneys, pre-trial, were offering less than a wrist slap to settle, but he refused and won in open court.
Not everybody is so driven, but a few denials when you are morally in the clear–and the White House is a possibility–is suspect to me. I’ve never seen someone with so much to lose so disengaged. Too many courtrooms for me, I suspect.
Maybe he has a huge counter-offensive planned. Maybe someone will look into and she’ll be discovered to be a lying fabulist. But She’s not shutting up and he’s getting hurt.
I’ll vote for him either way because I’ve concluded that voting for moral adhesion to a Christian ideal of marital intimacy is idiotic. Someone has to do something for the economy and to the tax code. Cain seems most engaged with these issues.
If only someone responsible would stop putting the microphone in front of her, until actual evidence is produced…
“I’ll vote for him either way because I’ve concluded that voting for moral adhesion to a Christian ideal of marital intimacy is idiotic.”
If I believed he had an affair with the woman(and was lying about it), I will drop my support for him like a flaming bag of dog shit. Voting for a known liar is idiotic.
Still, I won’t call an accused man guilty unless I see proof. It’s like, all American and stuff.
I’d vote for him too if he got the nomination but still it’s hard to come up with a convincing reason why he’d be all palsy walsy with a chippie if he wasn’t putting it to her.
My understanding is that as a California person my vote in the primary doesn’t count for a whole lot cause it’s already decided by the time it gets here.
So basically, she’s credible because Herman Cain isn’t acting like a lifelong politician — instead he’s acting like someone who’s convinced that his wife believes in him even if the whole world doesn’t, and that’s more important to him than the world’s opinion.
I’m liking Herman Cain more and more…
“If the girl down the hall in accounting who you’d seen eight times in three years (and you had never more than smiled to her at the elevator) accuses you of stalking her and sending dirty E-mails, I’m supposing you’d be a little more engaged with things when HR questioned you than a “No, hey, wrong guy.”
I wouldn’t. There’s a reason the burden of proof is on the accuser. Do you know what it is?
My opinion of Cain hasn’t changed much.
But there are many other people I’m liking even less. Some I’m even starting to regard as outright enemies.
The behavior on display Monday, shortly after this broke, was a wicked combination of shallow group think and blatantly dishonest spin. There was simply an absence of any continence, skepticism, or patience. People were behaving exactly like those they claim to oppose.
We are so fucked.
“it’s hard to come up with a convincing reason why he’d be all palsy walsy with a chippie if he wasn’t putting it to her.”
That’s just sad.
“Where’s the poof?!” as Lanny Davis used to screech.
We’ve all seen too many of these sorts of accusations made against people in public life. Herman is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The burden of proof is indeed on the accuser. Herman is still hemming and hawing about what he’s going to do. He should make a declarative statement about the accusations or stop talking about it all together.
Oh noes! He’s talking about spending more time with his family!
We might also pause to consider whether this current situation might be an example of precisely why Jeff’s larger point remains un-adopted by the ‘serious’ voices of the right blogosphere.
They simply do not want to be constrained by such things as real principle. Better to simply mouth words contra to whatever the left is, so long as it is rings sympatico with enough hoi polloi that they garner sufficient votes to gain or remain in power.
Tweeted!
still it’s hard to come up with a convincing reason why he’d be all palsy walsy with a chippie if he wasn’t putting it to her.
He’s a pastor? He helps those in need and because he has exactly zero dishonorable intentions it’s hard for him to see why anyone would use it against him?
Sometimes people say more about what is in their own heart, than what might be in the heart of another…
*
Sometimes people only hear what they want to hear.
There was an episode of the original Upstairs, Downstairs about this very subject.
A maid from the house was raped by the son of a rich man and got her preggers. The man of the house (the maid’s boss) tried to shame or even coerce the young man into owning up to his actions but the blaggard denied it entirely, his old man covered for him, and to shut him up, he threatened to accuse the man of the house of being the real father and trying to cover it up by blaming the kid. It was so easy to make the reverse accusation stick that the man backed off.
And then he offered to help the maid with expenses and such, but then had to back off from THAT, because who helps a mere maid unless he’s got a guilty conscience, right? They’d have been ruined just for doing a good deed because of the wagging of malicious tongues.
Damned if he tries to expose the culprit, damned if he tries to help.
If you’re in such a situation, ‘feets, how slick are you? You’re innocent but you look guilty as hell. What do you do?
Don’t confuse her, geoffb. She has the Pravda, and doesn’t need the facts.
First people would have to be predisposed to a belief that he would impregnate a girl…
One purpose of the earlier accusations, prep-work.
“First people would have to be predisposed to a belief that he would impregnate a girl…”
Anonymous and vague sexual harassment accuser girl #3, please step forward!
106.
You have it backwards.
A politician plays it smart and says little beyond broad denials and focuses on the next thing, hoping it goes away; in a pinch, he has a PR flak and a lawyer to drive the “no comment” home. A non-politican gives a shit and lets people know he’s getting maligned by a woman who needs a rubber room. Think of how Jeff handles his hermeneutics battles with whomever on language and intent. His reputation and credibility are on the line, or so he percieves, and he hashes it out, line by frigging dense theoretical line.
He IS a politician. The guy has run for Senator and now he’s running for POTUS. All you hope for is that he gets what crucially needs to be done, done. Rest assured that you are not voting for a philosopher king who can enact what may. The guy will cut deals left and right, look the other way when its necessary, twist arms and over promise and under deliver. He’s a politician that I and many others here like, but he’s in the people pleasing business to be certain.
107.
Yes. Except don’t we both know that most people, when faced with career-threatening–and personal life wrecking– accusations tend to be a little, I don’t know, emphatic. They get specific. They appear invested. But your point is valid: There is rule of law and the burden of proof is on the accuser.
103.
Just like Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones. They were evidence lite until, as it turns out, they were underplaying things.
I’m going to drop this now. My opinions about people being full of BS are just that-my own. I’m not looking to be controversial and there’s a fair amount of sharp people here, like McG and LB, who see it differently.
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling is precisely given over to these subjects, and others near kin to them — and in the lowness of that subject matter, the peopling of the Earth, it nurtures a high political commentary indeed.
I thought the book inscription Herman inscribed in the book he gave the chippie was the sort of thing you inscribe in a book what you give the chippie you’re putting it to.
Is that your interpretation, ‘feets? (he said coyly, thinking all the while of a key tenet of this site)
Roddy, you might try checking facts before reaching conclusions — you know, like a professional reporter would do — instead of reaching a conclusion based solely on your prior opinion.
Turns out, a professional reporter’s uninformed opinion is no better than anybody else’s.
Dearth, maybe hf’s interpretation is based on personal experience.
Darth. Damn you, auto-correct!
What was the inscription? I heard something about that, but can’t remember what it said.
“Friends are forever! Everything else is a bonus.”
GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!
OBVIOUSLY he’s referring to “friends with benefits.”
There’s no other explanation.
that’s what I thought too and I ran it passed NG and she said it sounded sketch to her too
here by the way are all of doug’s mickeys
From experience and observation there is no “correct” way that everyone reacts to a given emotionally charged situation. There are ways that our tens of thousands of hours of viewing the reactions to imagined traumatic events written up by both good and hack scriptwriters looking for pigeon holes to simplify their craft have foisted on us all. Public relations seeks to key off of these scripted pigeon holes to set the public’s thinking to be sympathetic to their clients.
Real people react in a myriad of ways, even a single person to a single event may have multiple reactions over time. When their real reaction doesn’t match the one we have been programed to see as “correct” they will beat themselves up over it over and over.
This is one of the most common things that friends have to make those most effected by an event understand, that their reaction is normal, normal for them and no one can say beforehand what that reaction will be. It just is and will happen uniquely for them as it does for everyone.
well not all
*past* I mean I think it’s time for an afternoon cup of coffee
Just read it.
Just Tweeted it.
Dead Solid Perfect, Jeff. We’ve all been infected with Leftist thinking and have to keep fighting every day against what has become instinctual.
Everything I text could me misconstrued….there…..sugarbritches.
“Be”. My pinky was a little stinky……there……sweetcheeks.
I can’t find a coffee cup except anywheres this sucks
sometimes when you’re misconstrued you just have to say… “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.”
link
Mr. Inhofe God bless him
Heh. Dennis Miller on O’Reilly sez: There’s too much steam on the windows of the Cain Train and not enough in the engine.”
“Friends are forever! Everything else is a bonus.”
Ohh, suggestive! Profane even.
Don’t let your kids read that shit!
Still, I think I’ll hold off erecting a stake and gathering firewood just yet.
Heh..erecting a stake…I kill me.
to me it sounds like something you say to your chippie to make her feel special
I don’t know that it truly matters a whole lot though. Cain was already toast before his chippie got sassy on the five o’clock news, except maybe maybe maybe as a veep candidate. Most likely Romney’s.
He does love him some Romney, our Herman does.
geoffb: Thanks for the link to the statement. I thought Cain has released a statement yesterday and that was it. He was yacking away with Neil Cavouto this afternoon, though. I thought the statement should have put the issue to bed, so to speak.
“ America needs jobs! “
Very nice! Well done, Herman.
Hadn’t known about the Cavuto till you mentioned it. Stacy reports on it here.
Then there is this contrasted with this and this.
Thanks for the links. Herman told Neal that he would make a decision “by next week”. Whaddaya think?
I think it depends on how many people hit the tip jar between now and then.
I would guess he’s talking to Romney … what’s it worth to Wall Street Romney to keep Cain in the race you think?
But at the same time he’s probably also talking to his wife.
Another video pulled. Different thing but same too.
E-e-e-e-e-xactly.
newt on hannity pressing all the right buttons
that boy is hands down easily the smartest fucker of the bunch
I need to google and see if he’s every abjured his climate change nonsense
*ever* abjured I mean
yes he don’t know now(whatever he’d shut down baracky’s czars in the 1st hour)
that’s less than super-reassuring
but, you know, beggars and choosers and all that
at the end the newt says he’ll ask baracky about his alinsky “students”. me got newtmemetum. we need a street fighter.
poor wall street romney watching it all slip away
mitten’s dog is happier today
And here I thought on twitter I was just talking to myself.
Mittens is going to end up going postal if/when he loses the nomination.
Paper cuts are so bloody.
link
Romney is entitled to his math and we’re entitled to THE math
“that boy is hands down easily the smartest fucker of the bunch”
yep
link
i shed no tears for hughhewitt
Mitt looked shifty in that interview. All coiled up like a spring in his chair so he didn’t fidget too much and could bounce out of there as soon as the cameras were off.
Mitt no likey Brett and it was obvious.
Romney says illegal immigrants need to get in the back of the line of people getting their ass kicked out of the United States until they’re at the front of the line and then they can go back to their home countries and get in the front of the line of the people waiting to get in the back of the line of the people wanting to come to America for freedom and then they they’re probably thirsty so they have to get in the back of the line for to get a tasty beverage and then go back to the back of the line and wait some more until they have to go to the baffroom
mr ace is in full melt down oh my scoamf
link
Romney seems to think that all the illegals immigrants in our country are from the Spanish speaking countries to the South. Au contraire, Willard. There are a lot of english speaking euro-trash types who are here because they ignored the “time to leave” stamp on their work and student visas. That and the hard working Asian people who man our sweatshops. Russian mail-order “brides”? We got them, too.
Someone needs to install an upgrade in Mitt’s anti-immigration software driver.
So Newt got paid what? a weeks worth of the bonuses given to the execs in charge of Frannie and Freddy? And did he do the work of did his employees do it?
“So Newt got paid what?”
what did solyndra get paid numbnut? or fast an furious? or gm and chrysler? stick a sock in it troll.
“Romney seems to think that all the illegals immigrants in our country are from the Spanish speaking countries to the South. Au contraire, Willard. There are a lot of english ”
and eff u to the other troll.
semen posters suck cock
You aren’t a very nice guy, newrouter. I don’t use nasty language like that when I’m talking to you.
I hope your pipes freeze this winter.
“You aren’t a very nice guy, newrouter. I don’t use nasty language like that when I’m talking to you.”
besides being an idiot there’s not much to say to you ms. leigh other than take a hike(hard h )
Well, there is certainly no question about your being an idiot, nr. When you start your own blog, I’ll join so you can ban me.
@176 Apparently you missed my point.
“@176 Apparently you missed my point.”
nah the trolls be tiresum
can the romney trolls do better please?
Damn, nr. What up ?
[…] to stretch my intellectual legs a few minutes.Last night I nudged Ace a little bit, and today Jeff Goldstein gave Ace an intellectual body-check, and then today — riffing on a Dennis Miller rant — Ace came back with a long argument […]
Yes, Yes, and Yes.
Cain is still the best bidnessman of the bunch. And we needs a bidnessman right about now.
in the hierarchy is a romney troll higher or lower than a progg?
just trying to gauge how insulted i should but won’t be.
hummm
“So Newt got paid what? a weeks worth of the bonuses given to the execs in charge of Frannie and Freddy? And did he do the work of did his employees do it?”
i luv that bain capital pic with mittens and crew. baracky too trolls
“in the hierarchy is a romney troll higher or lower than a progg? ”
nah just stupid
Listen to the pretty lady, nr.
bt, leigh,
here’s how it is done. newt. then senate and house with tea party dudes/ettes. small gov’t types pointing fingers at the newt. and phone calls lots of phone calls.
“Listen to the pretty lady, nr.”
allah says larry sinclair
picking the newt early means we can attack the house and the senate races Jan. 1. #OccupyFedGov’t
What if I don’t want to be slapped about like a pinball by the wizards playing the paddles? I’m still not over Sarah Palin being forced out by that lickspittle ‘author’ whose name is unimportant. To drop Cain completely, for a guy who was all but written off two months ago, isn’t a thing I’ll do reflexively. Sure, Gingrich is better’n Mitt, but as a last resort only!
Screw this bevy of bimbos come out from under the refrigerator at the last minute.
Until Ms. Cain whacks Herman with a skillet, I’m still in his camp. Thatisall.
“Until Ms. Cain whacks Herman with a skillet, I’m still in his camp. Thatisall.”
newt, then elect the “tea party” congress. use what we got.
The last guy as dead as Newt was this summer was John McCain and we all know how that turned out.
I think classical liberals/movement conservatives ought to be as nervous as pro-Romeny establishment types.
The tea party congress ought to be elected no matter what. It’ll curb both Mitt and Newt, or give Cain (or Bachmann or Santorum) a mighty stick to beat the ruling class with. And if worse comes to worse, it’s a check on SCOAMF 2 “this time, it’s personal.”
Well it’s all over now, the voices of the “gods” have spoken.
We made him and we will break him seems to be their assessment which would be hubris for mere mortals. Notice it is always about them, they are the active players in everything.
The Politico is just rolling around in their own shit and calling it ambrosia.
“…investigated by Politico…”
That’s a laugh. They’ve still got nuthin, four weeks later.
O.J. Simpson did a better job investigating the murder of his ex-wife than Politico did investigating investigating the allegations against Cain.
They’ve got hits, and lefty street cred up the ol’ Frank wazoo. Dat’s what they got. All they need is for their boy to win and they are in like Flynn.
I was talking with someone (sister’s friend) this past weekend who took the Cain allegations as settled fact. When I mentioned the utter lack of any proof they actually said, “No, I can send you the links by email. I’ve read a lot about it.”
I proceeded to have a drink and resolved to not speak with them the rest of the evening. I did allow myself one highly sarcastic comment though which earned me a raised eyebrow from my sister.
This is true, and an entire nation holding a socialist gun to its head, preparing to pull the trigger.
Cain likez the white wimminz
Bush lied, people died
Super Duper Double Secret Agent Woman Valerie Plame was outed by a vindictive Cheney
Polar Bears are drowning
The Oceans will be dead in ten years (fifteen or so years ago)
Bush stole the election —twice
Bush Sr. flew to Paris in a SR-71 to cut a deal with the Ayatollahs—just to make Carter look bad
Reagan hated poor people —especially poor people with AIDS
Peak everything (especially people —they’re the bomb man)
We have a system of checks and balances that demands Congress go to the Democrats when we have a Republican President (that one is my idiot brother-in-law’s, God bless him.)
That’s just thethings everyone knows to be true that aren’t that I couuld come up with off the top of my head.
after the chippie squawked Herman didn’t get a fundraising bounce like he got from the sexual harassment sluts
that’s not a good sign for him
Better sign?
I think that’s wise cell phone records count calls even if you go straight to voice mail but does she have to give them up?
Not unless he sues her.
You know what would help? Instead of all these confusing, differing and even contradictory news sources, we need one single place to get all our vital information. Like how acceptable candidates behave in all situations, why fiscal scandals and foreign policy debacles are much less important than who loves Jesus or likes to shtupp parishioners. We could call it “Truth” or something catchy like that.
I got a guy who butt dials me twice a day and leaves 5 minute vm’s of noises only heard from his back pocket.
.
.
.
.
.
It feels like an inappropriate relationship.
Probably not. I’d guess her lawyer is going to reply along the lines of “look it up on your own cell phone.”
Somebody’s credibility is going to take a hit though.
You should think about suing that ass, alp.
Don’t they already call that the New York Times?
I might take a crack at it.
Suing that is, not the NYT.
I couldn’t get that in before you completed that triple Ernst.
The NYT’s a good start, Ernst. The problem is all these other newspapers and websites that disagree with approved facts and opinions. And what about all those unmonitored places where inappropriate exchange of ideas can take place, like bars and cars and bedrooms? In fact, if you read the General Welfare clause, it clearly means that the First Amendment requires a free press, not many free presses.
A good government that cares would clear up certain people’s confusion about who is the Right Candidate to lose to Obama in 2012 and 2016. And 2020, let’s be honest he’ll need at least 4 terms to clean up the mess that Texas idiot chimp cowboy left.
Re: Cell phone records.
In the original story she calls a number that on her cell is labeled Herman and someone calling their self Herman Cain answers. Has Cain ever acknowledged taking that call?
What exactly are the “cell phone records”, a paper printout off of a computer? A piece of paper that looks like a bill from a cell phone company?
Just asking questions about what do we really know and what are we assuming that we know. A hit job doesn’t have to hold up any longer than it takes to knock someone out of the running. Then it can all fall down as it doesn’t matter then. Hell, discredit Fox in the process, a twofer.
Right, Darth. There’s just too much information out there for our new class of fucking self entitled monsters. What kind of world do we live in when your participation trophy can be so easily tarnished by some xenophobe with an opinion?
If I enter my mother’s phone number into my cell as “Barack Obama” I can prove that I talk to the President all the time.
That said, the first reporter says he called the number she had and got in contact with Cain, so there’s that. But he says he knows her, so we need to see the call records and the phone itself. Who called who, when, what duration, what do the texts say, etc.
That part I didn’t know, thanks.
That said, was it @THEHermanCain, or somebody named Herman Cain, or somebody the reporter thought was Herman Cain? I’m assuming the reporter has it together enough to verify that it was @THEHermanCain, but hey! deadlines are tight and there’s narratives to push.
This is a real piece of work.
IIRC, that was the genesis of Cain knowing that the story was going to break and thus preempting it with Blitzer. Here:
I thought it was spot-on about Gingrich, even if it was disdainful of the tea-party.
Premature Schadenfreude?
Ok, these parts.
A “savior”, “anointed”? This is the lefty echo in his head talking. How about we have some votes first before any anointing goes on. So far it is only the Media doing any anointing. Its about ideas, principles, not personalities. Now the constitution and the founding principles of the country are a myth? “Zestful attacks on the media”? Fine. “Unbridled self-regard” FU2 Bud. Activists are so left-speak. Name some “leaders” of the leaderless Tea Party.
It was spot on about Newt but then used that to trash their real enemy.
Via Insty, Verum Serum takes a look at Gingrich’s work for the Fannie-Freddie Complex and comes away with a view that’s not exactly consonant with what Newt would have had everyone believe about his labors a week or so ago:
But, geoffb, anointing a savior will make for a nice, neat orderly primary.
Why do you hate order? Perhaps you haff zumzink to hide, ja? Papieren, bitte!
Personally, I think anyone that would believe Ursula, er, Ginger over Cains word, and conclude Gingrich is the more moral choice, is retarded.
Agreed about the trash the real enemy point geoff
Geraghty’s Morning Jolt made some good points about Newt too. I think his conclusion is spot-on:
Says Great Barry the Liberator:
Lesson? When you lie, LIE BIG. And don’t listen to the laughter.
Sdferr – he should have burst into flames immediately upon those words crossing his lips.
I’d like to hear the audio from the room, I would.
Did the MFM cover Barcky not knowing the difference between England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom? Did you know the Embassy of the United Kingdom was attacked? Or was it the English Embassy.
Sdferr – after paying a minimum of $10,000 to be in the room, I suspect that every last one of them was inclined to believe the liar.
Small room probably.
This was the 50 in NYC not the 225 + 775 union ghosts in Scranton?
It has, it’s true. The Isrealis know they can’t depend on anyone else to ensure their own security, and they’ve acted appropriately.
Either that, or the Iranians have suddenly gotten a bad case of the fumble fingers.
This Tom Blumer fellow is thinking like me.
Personally I don’t have much faith in American voters anymore.
Personally I don’t have much faith in American voters anymore.
Neither did the Founders. And frankly, neither do the Populists and Progressives who contemptuously feign faith for their own ends.
Or to put it another way, I have faith in people (some more than others); it’s the masses (or mob, if you prefer) that scares the bejeesus outta me.
Remember, in the Founder’s day, American voters tended to be the older, wiser, more responsible people around. Just men, too, though I’m sure that’s just a side effect.
My point being (before leigh, Carin, dicentra, Darleen and others seek to convict me of 1st degree mysogyny), the voting base back in the day had mo’ better sense and knowledge of How Shit Works than it does today.
You’re fine with me, Darth. I’m feeling kind of misanthropic lately, myself.
Just men with property, Darth, which meant, presumeably, they had their shit together.
Except maybe for the one’s who inherited it.
About those damning text messages?
only 17 of 70 are from Cain, all replying to her.
If what I heard on Rush just a moment ago is what I think I heard.
Reagan was the one that had great faith in the American voter making the right choice. He even succeeded in instilling a little faith in me. I still think it was true…then.
Now, after the last couple of days, when Cain says “I don’t believe that America is going to let that happen,” I find myself searching for faith in that America, fruitlessly.
I wonder how Politico is going to treat Newt’s two admitted affairs on his two divorced wives, come spring?
Ole Ginger was a-stalking Herman, I think. She has a history of being a problematic business partner, a stalker—restraining order and all— and generally being a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
If this keeps up, I urge Herman ot go with the nuts ‘n’ sluts defense. Plus, he can’t help it if he’s a babe magnet.
No no no!
This proves, proves I say, that it’s all true! All of it!
Herman Cain won’t call her back! The sexist pig, he’s nothing but a user & abuser of women!
STRING HIM UP!
It must be true! Ginger said he promised to call! Ginger says it’s true and Herman says she’s lying! Who you gonna believe: Herman, that chauvanist pig of a preacher man, with his smoove talking ways or teary eyed, trembly lipped albeit past her prime Ginger?
I ask you, sair: who are you going to believe?
Don’t let’s forget: everything else is a bonus.
It’s like a preemptive confession I tells ya.