Herman Cain has captured my attention, and not in the good way. Even though I haven't been paying too much attention to what's going on in the GOP (there's no point in really- as a social worker I am bound by the Code of Ethics to vote Democrat), I've gleaned all sorts of information about Herman Cain from CNN articles, random sound bites,and commentary provided by Stephen Colbert.
Yes this is the sort of thing I've railed against in the past. Too bad for you I already knew I was a hypocrite, Mr. Jump-to-Conclusions Mat!
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| Incomplete research/incorrect facts+opinion-stated-as-fact=hypocrite. Well played, Mr. Jump-to-Conclusions Mat |
From what I know of Cain (and again I'm no Herman Cain wikipedia entry), he has already written a book about his journey to the White House, sold out his race, promised an electric border fence, claimed he was joking about the electric border fence, then said he was kidding about joking about the electric border fence,and insulted an entire nation of Uzbeks. That was all in like two months.
Note: I'm sorry about all of the links that took you away from my blog. I realize that you probably came here to read my blog and not read stuff that other people wrote. But since I'm only marginally interested in blatant plagiarizing, I figured it'd be best if I let you know that not all of my great ideas are, in fact, original.
But earlier this week, Cain's past rose up from the grave like a waylaid kitty cat from hell and bit him square on his I-am-America ass.
For the uninundated, some skeletons came out of Herman Cain's 1990s closet singing a couple of tunes about sexual harassment. With a backstory practically choking on a mix of political intrigue and Clue, this turn of events could very well turn the GOP tide. I'm sure Cain knows this- he has already begun engaging in his verbal denial gymnastics. Therefore I won't bother to keep feeding him rope with which to hang himself. No, I want to talk about something a little different:
I want to talk about me. Well, and you. You too.
See after reading about Cain's apparent indiscretions, I went through my checklist of predetermined cognitive biases. I compared it to my theory of Herman Cain that I had already postulated in my mind, found that it reinforced my notions, and filed it away as another case of Herman's Bane. And by 'filed it away', I mean 'attached a millstone to the neck of Herman Cain's chances for election and dropped it into Lake Superior'.
But then I started thinking about the whole idea of an event from 15+ years ago resurfacing in the present day. I started to think about mistakes committed in youth (or youngerness in Cain's case), and how much a person changes over the course of their lives. Biologically, Herman Cain isn't even made up of the same cells he was in the mid 90s. Who is to say those allegations (even if they are true) are necessarily relevant to Cain right now? Maybe he did act poorly towards women in those circumstances but then changed when he realized the error of his ways (note: I'm intentionally not going to talk about any financial hardships due to the 'error of his ways'. Oh crap. I just did.).
Then I thought about 'what if I was a candidate- what sort of dirt would they unearth about me?'. I decided that I didn't really like that line of thinking. I've spent the better part of a lifetime meticulously crafting my wholesome image, and some of the stuff I've done/thought/said could erase all of that hard work in the amount of time it takes you to say "Youshouldknowjasonparks.blogspot.com". Screw that, I say.
I reckon most of us like to think and hope that the dark deeds of evil will be brought to the light in this lifetime- as long as its the other guy. Thankfully, most of us don't go into careers where people are paid to delve into the sordid details of our pasts (no matter how 'past' they really are). Unfortunately, society makes it easy for us to be failure voyeurs, getting our self righteousness jollies by others shortcomings while we plant our own holy flags in the backs of those who lives the lives we wish we lived.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really don't care at this point whether Herman Cain did or did not sexually harass anyone in the Pizza biz. Because I'm not convinced it has anything to do with how well he would run our government.
I'm not trying to say that sexual harassment is a minor issue, and I'm not trying to minimize Herman Cain's 2 (known) transgressions in this area. After all, I'm a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male. I know all about discrimination (just from the other side).
The past counts, yes- but shouldn't our political discourse stick more to policy issues? It seems that nowadays, the only way to get people interested in politics is to sensationalize the candidates until our elected government officials are really just our latest reality TV contestants. I think back to 2008, and the whole 'Barack Obama is a secret Muslim/wasn't born in the USA/has ties to anti-patriot preacher'- and how none of those things really contributed anything to understanding Barack Obama's views on healthcare, the economy, or foreign policy. Which is, you know, what politics is kind of about.
As Americans, I think we owe it to ourselves, our neighbors, and the nation at large to seriously look into the political stances of our candidates and not their steamy off-camera failings. We're not voting someone off the island or trying to pick the next American Idol- we're trying to find the next Commander-in-Chief. And chances are that person will be a human being who has done some (relatively) horrible things- just like me. And you, I'd imagine. But then again, if we aren't willing to be governed by a morally-flawed human being with skeleton-laced closets- then maybe we should just give this whole 'anarchy' thing a go, eh?
PIC- http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/additional/large/office_space_kit_mat.jpg
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