If there’s still any sense left on the American political right, Herman Cain is done and was never actually a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. But it’s hard to tell just how much sense there is these days. Andrew Sullivan might have described the rise of Cain best with this:
I regard Cain’s dominance as just the latest sign of the degeneracy on the American right. He’s the ultimate candidate for a Palinized party: based on talk radio, uninterested in government, ruled by unreason, propelled by resentment, fixated on power.
I’d merely elaborate on the part about unreason to say that Cain seems to represent the worst tendencies on the right toward a proud anti-intellectualism and unseriousness. Cain seems so intent on portraying himself as an authentic, outsider, non-politician, regular Joe businessman that he apparently hasn’t found it necessary to familiarize himself with some basic knowledge about governance, policy and world affairs. He’s demonstrated notable and willful ignorance particularly in response to foreign policy-related questions. Here’s a pretty unbelievable example of what I’m talking about:
As seen above, Cain tends to play off these questions by either changing the subject with folksy business-management talk or giving non-answers that basically amount to, “I’ll get all of that information when I need to” or “that’s what I’ll have expert advisors for”. He’s essentially like a procrastinating student who tries to get around the need to study but (unlike many other candidates) is remarkably bad at BSing (I guess that last part is something that makes him appealing to some).
Cain is getting a lot of flak now for a painful recent interview in which he seems to completely draw a long blank on what has gone on in Libya and how he feels about President Obama’s handling of the situation. He then gives a long, fairly meaningless answer to scrub over the fact that he just hasn’t really bothered to look into it at all.
That’s pretty bad. But what really got to me recently were his answers to questions regarding torture in the last Republican debate. Responding to an email question about his general stance on torture, Cain said:
I believe in following the procedures that have been established by our military. I do not agree with torture, period. However, I will trust the judgment of our military leaders to determine what is torture and what is not torture. That is the critical consideration.
Then the moderator followed up by asking Cain his position on whether waterboarding constituted torture or “an enhanced interrogation technique”. Cain simply responds:
I agree that it was an enhanced interrogation technique. …Yes. I would return to that policy. I don’t see it as torture. I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique.
So here we see a little glimpse of Cain’s odd decision-making methodology in action. He doesn’t agree with torture, but he will let the field experts decide for him what is or isn’t torture. But wait, when it comes to waterboarding, something that pretty much everyone outside of Republican hawks believes is torture, and the Obama administration has made unlawful, Cain conveniently clings to the orwellian term that the Bush administration invented to get away with torture.
I’m sure Cain made that determination after gathering up all the relevant information and hearing all informed opinions and didn’t just say that because he thinks it probably scores points with the Republican base. Right?
Anyway, here’s a video clip of the debate. It’s worth watching in full from the 6:36 mark (where the questioning about torture begins), in part to see that Michele Bachmann is really far more frightening than Cain; She’s seriously hawkish and just makes things up out of the thin air in her own alternate reality with relative ease. But also note the response from Ron Paul; I have my severe disagreements with Paul, but when it comes to this subject at least, I’m always thankful he is up there, demonstrating some semblance of moral clarity and reason. Jon Huntsman, too, has a fine response against torture to wrap up the segment; but of course those two latter candidates have far less of a chance at the nomination than even Cain or Bachmann…
Oh, and for what it’s worth, here is President Obama’s unequivocal response to Cain’s and Bachmann’s support of waterboarding:
They’re wrong. Waterboarding is torture. It’s contrary to America’s traditions. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate. We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. And we did the right thing by ending that practice.
If we want to lead around the world, part of our leadership is setting a good example. And anybody who has actually read about and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that that is torture. And that’s not something we do — period.
Last month, I reflected a bit on the death penalty in light of the controversial Troy Davis execution. In that post, I mentioned the crowd at the Republican debate that applauded Texas’s high number of executions and how I was struck by the lack of doubt the crowd and Gov. Rick Perry seemed to have about the subject.
I’d forgotten to mention this, but I remember thinking at the time that I could only really make sense of the responses from Perry and the crowd by imagining that these responses resulted from a very black and white view of the world. A view that says, we are the good guys, and there are very bad, bad people out there who do very bad, bad things. And merely if the good criminal justice system says so and so is one of those bad, bad people, we must unapologetically punish them accordingly without question or hesitation.
That, it seems, is the attitude of Florida state representative, Brad Drake. Last month, Drake filed a bill that would allow executions to be carried out only by electrocution or firing squad, rather than by lethal injection. Here’s Drake’s thinking on the matter:
“There shouldn’t be anything controversial about a .45-caliber bullet. If it were up to me we would just throw them off the Sunshine Skyway bridge and be done with it.” (link)
…
“I am sick and tired of this sensitivity movement for criminals,” Drake said. “Every time there is a warranted execution that is about to take place, some man or woman is standing on a corner holding a sign, yelling and screaming for humane treatment.
“I have no desire to humanely respect those that are inhumane.”(link)
Yikes. OK. Well, let’s look beyond the general cruelty and brutality in that sentiment for a minute. Drake’s attitude reminds me a lot of the attitudes of defenders of torture – or, ahem, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ – over the last few years. The two disturbing components I would always catch listening to such talkers on the radio and whatnot were, 1), no concern over how the detained person in question is treated, because, “Hey, they’re a terrorist. This is what they deserve, if not worse.”, and 2), no question or concern over whether said person is in fact a guilty person in the first place.
The lingering presence of that attitude in our culture, whether it pertains to the justice system here at home, or conduct in wars abroad, seriously troubles me. In no small part, because, beyond the regardless ethical problems and inhumanity of executions and torture therein, neither area is anywhere near as black and white as people who support such methods seem to want to think they are. Evidence has shown that we get the wrong people all the time.
You’d think all the false convictions that have been overturned would have undermined support for the death penalty in this country more than they have. Radley Balko had an interesting article recently about why Americans still support the death penalty. Making this topic even more complex, Balko concludes the article with discussion of evidence that lethal injections might not actually be the most humane and painless form of execution. Instead, he suggests, we’ve opted for lethal injection because it simply appears humane and painless to us – because it comfortably “sanitizes” the death penalty.
Balko suggests that if we did do the kind of executions again which Rep. Drake wants, that would probably turn a lot more people off to the death penalty; I kind of liken that to the idea of asking supporters of the death penalty if they could actually pull the switch themselves. But if it’s true that most people would recoil at harsher appearing executions and rethink their support, then what does that say about the people out there like Brad Drake who not only have no qualms about executions at all, but really want them to not only be harsh and brutal, but really appear harsh and brutal too?
I don’t know why I sometimes torture myself by watching Meet The Press. And I really don’t why I’m about to devote an entire blog post to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. But I do. And I am.
Last week, host David Gregory interviewed Cain at the top of the show (transcript/video), a reflection of Cain’s sudden rise to top of the Republican primary polls. Cain’s popularity is something that I kind of get and don’t get at the same time. He has this sort of folksy, no-nonsense persona, whereby he equates supposed simplicity with self-evident quality and cites his own political inexperience as some great qualification that will lead him to succeed in politics. Makes a lot of sense, I know.
Gregory began the interview with a discussion of the superficially simple cornerstone of Cain’s campaign: the gimmicky 9-9-9 tax plan. This plan would replace all current federal taxes with three flat rates: 9% national sales tax; 9% business tax; and 9% individual income tax.
I didn’t have the will to make it much further than the 9-9-9 portion of the interview, frustrated as I was by Cain’s flippant answers and Gregory’s apparent inability / lack of will to conjure up smart follow-up questions / stronger challenges to Cain’s dubious points. But the part that really got me reeling was when Gregory asked Cain how he could get such a big tax reform passed. Here’s Cain’s initial response:
…here’s how we get it passed. First, throw out the current tax code. Secondly, because the American people understand it, the American people are embracing it. See, this is the problem that some people inside Washington have with 9-9-9. The American people understand it. The American people are embracing it such that when I have this legislation–ask Congress to introduce this legislation, the American people will understand it, and they are going to demand it. That’s how we get it passed.
Gee, who knew politics could be so neat and simple? Bear in mind what Cain is talking about here. He wants to not only throw out the current tax code, but then overhaul the tax system not once, but twice. First with the 9-9-9 plan and then later replace that with the Fair Tax. No big deal, right?
What gets me even more is the nice sounding throwaway line, “The American people understand it…are embracing it.” Really? Do they really understand it? A lot of clever people have been digging into what little details there are of this plan, and are still coming up with question marks and wait-and-sees over exactly how it would work.
Consider the business tax, for example. Do “the American people” know that several analysts, left, right, and in-between, have concluded that the business tax is less like the current corporate income tax and more like a modified value-added tax (VAT)? Do the people know exactly what a VAT is and how it functions? This is a kind of consumption tax, by the way, that Cain himself denounced as “the cowardly tax” just six months ago.
Do the American people know that many analysts, after concluding that the 9% business tax is a consumption tax not very unlike the national sales tax, now simply combine the two as an 18% consumption tax that will ultimately hit the end user and/or wage earner?
Do the American people know that this is what Cain wrote regarding a VAT back in April?
[A VAT] taxes each phase in the development of a product or service until it is ultimately sold to the end user, and you also pay any applicable retail sales taxes. These intermediate taxes are passed along to the consumer and are reflected as a net increase in the price of the goods or service.
The doubly outrageous aspect of the VAT is that it is on top of all the other state and federal taxes we pay.
Yet, when David Gregory pointed out to Cain that his national sales tax, combined with state and local sales taxes (where applicable) would have people paying as much as 17% tax or more on goods (19% where I live), Cain just waved away the concern; “That is muddying the water”, he said.
Do the American people know that all of this is just a transitional step to the Fair Tax, something I don’t think I’ve heard Cain directly say? Do they understand and support the Fair Tax, a national retail sales tax at a rate of 30% (or 23%, depending on whom you ask)? Cain doesn’t seem to take that for granted. The page for his plan on his website, under “Phase 2 – The Fair Tax”, reads:
Amidst a backdrop of the economic renewal created by the 9-9-9 Plan, I will begin the process of educating the American people on the benefits of continuing the next step to the Fair Tax.
I don’t mean to sound condescending. I only have a very loose grasp on all this stuff myself, even after digging into it over the last couple days. And that’s kind of the point. This supposedly simple, easy to understand 9-9-9 plan really isn’t so simple and clear at all. It kind of feels like Cain is making a lot of this up as he goes along too.
But hey, it is catchy and easy to remember. If this whole presidential gig doesn’t pan out, Cain could probably make some pretty mean infomercials. Just think of all the great little gadgets one might want to buy in quantities of 9 for 9 easy payments of $9.99.
