Category Archives: Current Events

Ari Melber on why Herman Cain really isn't running for president.

There's a tendency to presume that every candidate has a calculated scheme and a deliberate goal. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Cain doesn't really know or care what his chances are of being president. Up until the time he was hit with the sex-related charges, he struck me somehow as a guy who was just having fun with the campaign and who figured that he'd become more famous, sell more books, raise his fee for speeches, maybe get some interesting offers for more books or TV shows and maybe — just maybe — have a 100-to-1 shot at becoming president or at least vice-president. He probably still thinks that he'll come out of this whole campaign better than if he'd never run.

I always thought that was true of Sarah Palin, too; that she was more or less making it up as she went along. She probably thought she had a better shot at the presidency…but not necessarily a greater yearning for it.

Here's the question I would like to see someone put to all the Republican candidates who say they're in favor of waterboarding…

When asked about most issues relating to the military, your reply is that you would "listen to the generals on the ground." When asked about waterboarding, you say you would not hesitate to use it because you believe it has been effective in gathering intelligence. But General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander of the surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan and now director of the Central Intelligence Agency has said that waterboarding has not been effective and has caused long-term problems for the U.S. Why are you not listening to him on this topic?

No one will probably ever ask this question to any of them but I wonder how they would respond. It would probably be something along the lines of "Well, I'll consider his viewpoint and then ask some other generals." And if they ask enough, of course, they'll find someone who will be for it.

Fred Kaplan reports on last night's G.O.P. debate. It seems the way to dodge any question that relates to the military is the old "I'd listen to the generals on the ground" ploy. Whatever happened to civilian control of our armed forces?

This whole scandal at Penn State is infuriating and maddening and everywhere I turn, I see people asking, "Why didn't they stop it? Why didn't someone report this?" Good questions. Much of America is going to be talking about this until we get some good answers…or at least as good as we're likely to get.

Journalist Joe Posnanski is in the midst of writing a book about Joe Paterno. I'm not sure how I feel about all the points Mr. Posnanski makes in this blog post but I'm sure some of them are valid…and if one is interested in this case, it's probably important to consider them all. To some extent, this story is feeling like a jigsaw puzzle that everyone is trying to assemble without all the pieces.

A few pieces might be found in this article about the points of legal jeopardy that various parties now face.

Tim Dickinson on how the Republican Party became so obsessed with making the rich richer.

As you all know, the other night in the Republican debate, Texas guv'nor Rick Perry had a little trouble remembering the third of three government agencies he wanted to abolish. Pundits are calling it the greatest political gaffe of all time and I just watched Jon Stewart and Jay Leno have enormous fun with it on their shows tonight.

I may be alone in this viewpoint but it doesn't seem like that big a thing to me. So the guy froze up on live television and his brain skipped a channel and he looked foolish. If there was a chance in the world I might vote for this guy, this would not make me any less likely to vote for him. It isn't about his ideas for policy and what he'd do as president. It isn't really even about his intelligence. I have plenty of reasons in both of those categories to hope this man never gets near the Oval Office but nowhere in that list is "had one memory lapse on television."

I did not watch this debate live. When I heard about this greatest gaffe in history, I eagerly made a dash for a YouTube video to see what it was. I mean, I'm quite in favor of Rick Perry being so humiliated that his White House ambitions end. But when I saw the clip, I thought, "That's it? That's nothing?" For the record, and not just to draw a partisan equivalency, I feel that way about most Joe Biden statements that get hailed as withering foot-in-mouth gaffes.

Human beings make mistakes…and no matter what their particular opponents may claim, politicians are human. Except maybe Newt.

Fred Kaplan examines Mitt Romney's bold and fresh idea about what to do about Iran. Turns out it's pretty much the same thing the Obama administration is already doing.

In light of Rick Perry's disastrous fumble in the most recent presidential debate, James Fallows recalls some other bad moments for debaters…with video clips, thereof.

Herman Cain and his handlers keep making mistake after mistake in their handling of the accusations against him. If he's guilty of the charges, they're handling it poorly. And if he truly is innocent, they're really handling it poorly.

And I'm thinking that his decision to go on David Letterman's show this Friday is going to be the biggest misstep of all…

Matt Taibbi on Mitt Romney's new proposal — just another in the unending stream of schemes to try and help Wall Street get its hands on all that Medicare and Social Security money.

Could someone who isn't currently among the Republicans battling for the nomination get it? Nate Silver discusses what Sarah Palin or Chris Christie or someone else would have to do to jump into the fray now and emerge victorious. Bottom line: It's possible but it would be very, very difficult. My guess is that anyone who genuinely imagines themselves in the Oval Office and yearns for that would think they'd do better to wait 'til next time.

My chum Robert J. Elisberg tells us what would have happened if George W. Bush had done some of the things Barack Obama has done. I concur.

In some ways, it's great that the Occupy movement has no official spokesperson. It makes the group more organic and allows those who worry about it to worry about just where and how it will wield whatever influence it has. On the other hand, when those who abhor the Occupy movement try to dismiss it as dirty hippies who just hate rich people and achievers, there's no one to say, "No, we don't hate rich people. We hate rich people who cheated and gamed the system to become rich or richer." (At least, I think that's what most of them are saying…)

The criminal end of what the Occupiers are mad about is being chronicled a lot by Matt Taibbi. He keeps talking about what this company or that broker did that should be punished by jail time…and I don't see anyone questioning his alleged factual recitals. I see some dismissing the purported crimes as "business as usual" but not saying that it shouldn't be the norm. If you get a moment, read this piece by Taibbi and then read his follow-up.

Dahlia Lithwick on the new Conservative defense of Herman Cain: There's no such thing as sexual harassment and any woman who'd file such a claim is just a greedy tramp looking for a lot of free, unearned money. I have no doubt there are such ladies — just as there are men who report crimes that didn't happen — but it is a legitimate crime in many instances. And if a woman accused, say, Joe Biden of it, the pundits denying it's a genuine wrong would not be saying that.

I'm not sure how guilty or innocent Herman Cain is of sexual harassment…and a lot of the folks who say they're sure really can't be but you know how it is in politics: The guy you want to have be guilty is always guilty and the guy you want to have be innocent is being smeared by a ginned-up phony story. All I know is Cain's version keeps changing and getting worse…so even if he didn't verbally accost all those ladies, he's at least guilty of bad crisis management and not being able to get his story straight. I also think some of his defenders are saying some pretty stupid things…like "there's really no such thing as sexual harassment" and "the media never covers charges of sexual misdeeds against Democrats." We all know how little traction Paula Jones's allegations got.

Polls say Republicans aren't deserting Cain over this. Well, actually the headlines reporting those polls say that. The actual polls show some erosion. There might be more if those Cain supporters had a viable second choice to go to. If they don't want Romney, giving up on Herman just means moving to some other flawed candidate who has little to offer besides not being Mitt Romney.

But the main thing here is that I really don't believe most of the current Cain supporters figure on being Cain supporters when it comes time to vote. I think telling a pollster "I'm for Herman Cain" is like saying "I'm for anyone who didn't do these four or five things (like launch an Obamacare-like health program) that Mitt Romney did." For most of them, there's no point in abandoning Cain now because they're already planning on abandoning him before marking their ballots for whoever at that moment seems most likely to beat Obama.

The question I'd like to see the pollsters ask is "Regardless of who you'd like to see be the Republican nominee, which candidate do you think would stand the best chance of unseating Barack Obama?" I'll bet that would be a better indicator of who the G.O.P. candidate will be than "Who do you intend to vote for?"