"I can only pick on an ignoramus so many times before it feels sadistic."

[babylonsister]

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/14/the_herman_cain_mercy_rule_is_now_in_effect


The Herman Cain Mercy Rule is now in effect
Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Monday, November 14, 2011 - 10:43 PM Share


For the record, I don't think Herman Cain is stupid. I do think he's willfully ignorant about anything to do with foreign policy however. If that wasn't manifestly obvious prior to this weekend, please watch the following conversation between Cain and the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal editorial board regarding Libya:

Video @ link~

I have a personal preference that ignoramuses should be drummed out of presidential politics as quickly as possible, but that was just painful to watch. Needless to say, I don't think the boning up is helping all that much.

I don't care if this man is leading the polls in Iowa, or is still running a strong second (or a weak third) in the national polls. I suspect he's on the downside of his popularity bubble -- and for the sake of my own sanity, I just can't pay any more attention to Herman Cain's foreign policy views.

There's a mercy rule in Little League, and I'm applying it here -- unless and until Herman Cain surges back in the polls again, or manages to muster something approaching cogency in his foreign policy statements, there's no point in blogging about him anymore. I can only pick on an ignoramus so many times before it feels sadistic.

[Ian David]

1. But Herman Cain didn't use his safeword! n/t

[SheilaT]

2. When I watched the video of his interview

with the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal yesterday, all I could think of was some high school student trying to answer an essay question that he knew nothing about. The same kind of filling in with words that are an attempt to sound like some kind of information is being conveyed, but is totally empty of content.

So there you have it: a high school student who never bothered to read the text, never took notes in class, and simply paid no attention when he even bothered to go to class.

[lib_wit_it]

3. As Larry and/or Rachel (or maybe it was Jon or Stephen) said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[jsmirman]

12. Exactly what I thought, although more like a 5th or 6th grader

I suspect he's a serial sexual harasser, so no, I have no mercy for him, but I could only watch 58 seconds of that clip.

That was the point at which it was just too uncomfortable to experience it with him.

Seriously, though, that was PATHETIC.

This isn't a pop quiz. These are questions anyone with below average intelligence and even the slightest interest in what is happening in the world could answer competently. The hysterical knuckleheads interviewed during the Penn State "riot" are still hysterical knuckleheads (referencing that one idiot guy who trotted out the nonsense about "the chief of police," and that nauseating girl who couldn't form a complete sentence - "won't even let him one more game"), but they would have sailed through that "interrogation" without breaking a sweat.

Please, get real, Herman. Joke's over. Fuck off.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Drezner may not think it, but I do. Herman Cain is stupid.

In a number of ways.

[NatBurner]

5. piss on that mercy shit

these videos need to be replayed ad nauseum, forcing his cheerleaders and apologists to keep defending him

what say ye, hannity? limbaugh the hut? michael berry?

I can't wait for them to tie themselves in knots attempting to spin this clusterfuck

[barbtries]

6. for the record,

he's looking pretty stupid.

[rurallib]

9. agreed - no matter the subject.

either he doesn't know, his answer is off subject or his answer is flat wrong.
haven't seen him score higher than an F- on anything yet.

[lunatica]

7. It could have been a 'senior moment'

So it's not funny. Serious, but not funny. Not if it's that.

[Cigar11]

8. They deserve what they get ...

The media jumped all over Sarah Palin when she couldn’t answer basic political questions, and Herman Cain should be no different. I don’t want an idiot representing The United States of America. If the Republican Party thinks it’s cool to be Ignorant of Washington Politics then they deserve the options they now have. But don’t expect the Main Stream Media to give them a break.

[Bluenorthwest]

10. I think mercy is for the merciful....

Personally I've not said much about Cain because he was never a contender. I heard him interviewed a year or more back, prior to the 'campaign' and I was just taken aback by many aspects of his personality, particularly the need for attention and the great joy he expressed from being written about and such. I had never in my life heard a person who had had large success sound so thrilled at having his name in the paper, he struck me as amazingly fame struck for a person of means with a history of holding powerful jobs. Just so needy. Such a man could never win a major election of any kind. If he had to actually debate Obama, he'd pass out cold. He would pass out. Cold.

[applegrove]

11. I so concur.