Friday, November 4, 2011

Charles Blow "Don’t Call Herman a Monster": Blow's Double Standard

Let's get two things straight from the git-go:

1. Herman Cain, like Donald Trump before him, is not a serious candidate for president.

2. An accusation of sexual harassment by even one woman without a credible response should preclude his candidacy.

However, it is remarkable how pundits from the left are outraged by Cain's behavior, yet were prepared to excuse the manner in which Obama sat in silence over the course of twenty years, listening to the anti-American and racist rants of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Sure, upon becoming a presidential candidate, Obama gradually disassociated himself from Wright, but was that enough? Would it now be enough for Cain to declaim against sexual harassment in the workplace and elsewhere?

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "Don’t Call Herman a Monster" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/opinion/blow-dont-call-herman-a-monster.html?_r=1&hp), Charles Blow decries Cain's fuzzy responses to allegations of sexual harassment:

"Cain’s answers to date simply haven’t satisfied. They’ve been as ham-handed as it gets. He’s flip-flopped like a fresh-caught-fish in the bottom of the boat. Even if he didn’t remember the allegations, surely he could have gotten and read through the settlements before submitting to interviews. Right? Right?!

Such a botched response would have spelled trouble for a candidate of another stripe and in another time. But this is Herman Cain: the unorthodox candidate with unprecedented ascendance in a Tea Party age.

. . . .

The fact that Cain obviously isn’t presidential timber holds little weight with those who view the current resident of the White House as, at best, unqualified and, at worst, illegitimate.

. . . .

They’re all looking beyond your faults, Mr. Cain. They all are."

Yes, Cain's "answers to date simply haven't satisfied," and indeed, "Cain obviously isn’t presidential timber." Moreover, it is disgraceful that there are those on the right who continue to support Cain without a convincing rejoinder to these allegations.

On the other hand, wasn't it Obama who couldn't remember Wright's hate-filled diatribes, and wasn't it the left that was "looking beyond" Obama's "faults"?

Worse still, Obama has demonstrated over the past three years that he "obviously isn't presidential timber," as evidenced by his failed economic and foreign policies.

How pitiful that the Republicans are incapable of fielding a respectable crop of candidates offering "Change we can believe in."

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