Plus, have you seen the way he smiles, all slow and such?
He’s Mandingo.
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been trying to shut down the unsavory story line that he sexually harassed at least two female co-workers while heading the National Restaurant Association from 1993 to 1996, by proclaiming that he was “falsely accused” and suggesting that he’s the victim of a witch hunt, a liberal—or perhaps Republican—conspiracy, or some other kind of evil voodoo.
What he has not done is make any evident attempt to consistently telegraph trustworthy, innocent, presidential or future-well-paid-pundit as cameras scrutinize his every glance and gesture.
[…]
No other candidate on the Republican docket has demonstrated the kind of affection Cain has shown for the double-breasted suit—this menswear silhouette with its wide, peak lapels. He has favored six-on-two button suits in solid charcoal as well as those with subtle chalk stripes. To be sure, Cain’s suits are well cut and he has the stature to carry them. Still, they have always been a curious choice and they have now become ill-advised. He would do well to expunge every double-breasted suit from his wardrobe.
A double-breasted suit is more formal than a single-breasted one. Because of that, there are those who believe a double-breasted suit conveys a certain elegance of a bygone era, calling to mind Humphrey Bogart in a white dinner jacket or Gianni Agnelli with his dashing and eclectic style. They are favored by high-end designers and aficionados of bespoke tailoring. But in this more casual age—when the “suits” are feeling the rage of Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, and anyone who has helplessly watched the rapid decline of their 401(k)—Cain’s garb carries with it a sort of haughty swagger.
At first, the style seemed to play to his hustings sales pitch: He was the accomplished businessman who, while preaching tough love—or disdain—to the unemployed, assured voters that he could right this country’s finances if only given the opportunity. It’s a daring approach, as even Mitt Romney, who also sells himself as having a keen businessman’s insight on job creation, has been skittish about exuding suit-wearing bravado.
But now, when it’s alleged that Cain wielded his executive power in a sexual and inappropriate way, that in-your-face, sartorial swagger reads in damning ways.
Cain’s love of double-breasted suits also links him to religion. He is an ordained Baptist preacher and a man with a habit of breaking out in gospel song at the slightest provocation. Ministers of a certain persuasion often seem to have a predilection for double-breasted suits, as well as three-piece ones. Some of that must surely be because of tradition and formality, but there is also an element of the hierarchal at work. Instead of choosing the most modest and humble of suits—a sack suit, perhaps—they opt for something more regal. The fancy suit distinguishes them from the mere congregants they lead. It gives them the appearance of clout, dignity, and righteous grandiosity.
[…]
[…] lately, as he dabs the sweat from his brow, the click-click-click of the cameras reveal that Cain has lost control of his message. That savvy, crafted image has turned on him. And far from defining him as an empty suit, it suggests he is one filled with both hubris and sanctimony.
And with that, journalism and the women’s movement both climb on Fonzi’s bitch seat and officially jump the shark.
Gloria Allred’s appearance later will only serve to double the flotsam.
(h/t Rush Limbaugh)
That’s some deep thinking right there.
Double-breasted suit = uppity.
He should know his place if he wants white people to like him.
/leftist thinking
Heck Ella, I thought the story just a few days ago was “he must already know his place because white people like him”?
KayInMaine DEMANDS all Presidential candidates wear only Nehru jackets and Bermuda shorts. Yes, that DOES mean barefoot and commando.
Btw, Kaus linked to this piece a few days ago.
Why can’t they see the obvious? The content is just shockingly stupid. That right there is a not so minor flaw in their business model.
Wonder what Chris Wallace’s breastpocket handkerchief thinks, besides that it has a bad case of the sniffles?
Anymore when I see a crisp crease in a mans slacks I’m afraid my back pocket is about to be brutally raped.
Avoid any hint executive power projection in your choice of suits to wear.
What? They’ve got Meghan McCain AND Andrew Sullivan! How else are you going to cover the conservative POV? What the hell do you want?
You know, Cain’s hair cut seems a bit hierarchical, too. I’d have to find some pictures to confirm, but I’ll bet the sneaky bastard even shines his shoes!
I believe that the appropriate response to that tripe is “Holy fuck!”, followed by having to admit that we are well and truly boned as a nation.
What’s intimidating is that microphone. And those wire-rimmed sunglasses.
And that stiff finger.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nELERl6ehGM/TqDTa2mP0pI/AAAAAAAAGec/FWsee7lGEmU/s1600/herman+cain+2012.JPG
Herman Cain has never in this lifetime called to anyone’s mind Humphrey Bogart in a white dinner jacket you silly twat
find one person
I’ll bet Herman also gets his hair cut weekly and that he owns a clothes brush and shoe trees. Oh, the humanity!
Shoe trees are innately oppressive, leigh.
I had to settle for a double-breasted suit some years back because That’s What Everybody Was Wearing and Three-Piece Suits Are Just So Eighties!
I suspect Robin Givhan was too busy playing with her dollies in the ’90s to notice that what she now calls ’50s retro was actually “in” for a while in the past couple of decades.
Ministers of a certain persuasion often seem to have a predilection for shoe trees.
It gives them the appearance of clout, dignity, and righteous grandiosity, as well as distinguishing them from the mere congregants they lead.
Shoe trees, you see, are like that tree in the garden of Eden. The distinguish the upright from the fallen.
what’s a shoe tree?
Herman Cain = uppity, Ella. The double-breasted suit merely proves it.
Wonder what Robin Givhan thought of Obama’s perfectly creased trousers.
Wait. No I don’t.
From the wiki:
This was at the time Brother Juan and I were neighbors on Whittier St. I saw many a pained look on his face round about that time. He knows from where he speaks, and though he doesn’t detail it today, his friends in the media know he knows.
I hear she is giving her press conference at the Friars Club. Is this a Roast of Herman Cain? Okay, here is a classic.
Does anyone have any idea at all of what this idiot is talking about? Said idiot clearly doesn’t.
Shoe tree.
Wait. I thought it was the three-button, not the double-breasted suit. that was the In Thing.
Why doesn’t somebody tell me these things?!
Daily Beest? It’s Newsweek – without the, y’know’ journalistic talent or integrity.
The leap of faith necessary for Ms. Givhans to go from allegation to conviction is too small to be measured with anything but the finest micrometers, as long as she is writing about conservatives.
Say, whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty anyway?
oh right I threw all those away in the move
She won a Pulizer. For fashion critique.
No, I’m not kidding. They give prizes for that.
Ms. Givens thinks Michelle Obama is “fashion-forward”, charles. ’nuff said.
I googled her she’s almost as bald as Herman
Herman has a sexy pencil-thin mustache. Does Robin?
In the old days, whites used to hang blacks from shoe trees. So its racist Cain owns any.
Leigh, give her a few years.
The question is: are his shoes wing-tips? Inquiring minds want to know.
Right-wing tips.
Robin Givhan is modern journolism. She’ll be editing Politico someday.
McGehee, if he also wears french cuffs and cuff-links, we can do nothing less than classify him as a Dandy. And you know how they are.
Can we just agree that Herman Cain is the worst person in the history of Western Civilization, give Robin Givhan another Pulitzer, and be done with it?
C’mon, focus!
she’s fat and racist and more stupid cow-looking than slutty-looking I think
but maybe back in the day she could pull off a stupid slutty cow look more credibly
gaaa … runs screaming from Ace’s
cuts self
She wasn’t even a cute cow back in the day, happy.
Carin, FYI, stay away from Ace’s. You could cut yourself on the stupid.
oops sorry that should have gone on the new thread
yes leigh you’re right and now she has this sort of tranny thing going on
Yea, I was just checking to see if they had a link to the story about the new Cain stupidity.
That kind of shit really pisses me off though.
I think we should give Robin the benefit of the doubt. She was really good in Head of the Class, and a friend told me that she was pretty good in Playboy, too.
She was pretty cute in Bommerang, too.
I don’t if that’s from Rabbit, one of rabbit’s co-bloggers, or some random commenter. But whomever it’s from, I’m wondering, does he not know what he doesn’t know, or does he know what he doesn’t know, and doesn’t care? I’m mean, who’s really playing the Ignorance is Strength card here?
I don’t KNOW if that’s from Rabbit.
(I think I need to start using pen and paper again.)
It’s not that knowledge is weakness, it’s that so much of that “knowledge” isn’t true!
[paraphrase Reagan]
Well, Ace should just go ahead with the Huntsman endorsement.
Pablo, I find your new avatar a bit threatening. Something about the hand on the hat. It’s non-sexual, but it makes me uncomfortable never-the-less.
It just makes me madder and madder the more I see it.
We seem to have a schism in the party between those who think knowledge is power and those who think knowledge is weakness.
Yea, that’s exactly fucking how I see it. I just like my politicians stupid. Is there anyone from NASCAR I can endorse?
Just imagine where the other hand is, Carin.
bahaa haaa haa
I’m mean, I am appalled.
okay, where the hell is that? I can’t find it.
(And it’s not a non-sexual gesture, it’s a not overtly sexual gesture. I mean, maybe he’s tipping his hat in gratitude after the wham bam, ma’am.)
This is from the same guy who fell for the Cain thinks China doesn’t have nukes bullshit, of course.
I mean, you wouldn’t take the time to do the slightest bit of research on the background of someone you’re constantly ragging on? I guess he thinks knowledge is weakness or something.
never mind, found it.
Funny.
I’m an atheist, and I prefer a double-breasted suit, ideally a six-button.
Because suits are formal wear, and are ideally conservative in form.
She can take her cultural baggage argument and peddle it to, well, the people she’s peddling it to.
(More importantly, who the hell cares about Givhan’s fashion column? Who ever cared, no matter who she was talking about?
And why does the Daily Beast suck so bad? What was Treacher thinking moving there? [I know what I was thinking – “I’m never reading him now, I guess.”])
Treacher is at The Daily Caller not Beast if you want to start reading him again.
It turns out that John Edwards was not wearing a double-breasted suit when photographs were released showing him with the child he sired out of wedlock with a homely, spacey campaign worker while his wife lay dying of cancer.
Guy’s pretty much a dead ringer for Hercule Poirot, know what I’m sayin’?…
Of course double-breasted suits are proof of harrassment. I mean! They positively scream breasts! His very double-breastedness could well create a hostile work environment! Whereas a single-breasted suit shows your solidarity with the Susan G. Komen sorts.
…
Okay, I’ll denounce myself now.
that reminds me of that time I bought the pink m&ms with the ribbon on the bag and they made me think of little tumors
Even assuming for the moment that these allegations are true, wouldn’t they be covered by the One Free Grope Rule?
Right? They should just put some ice on it, already.
Was this written by Iowahawk?
…No?
Aw sh–
[…] -According to Robin Givhan of The Daily Beast, the fact that Herman Cain favors the double-breasted suit transmits that he is a serial sexual harasser. In solidarity with HC, Paco outs himself as a ‘smooth operator’. […]