Quo Vadis, Herman Cain?

QUO VADIS, HERMAN CAIN?
by Burt Prelutsky
Thursday, November 3, 2011

With one percent of Americans paying most of the income taxes in America, while 47% pay nothing, it figures that Democrats would decide that the fair thing to do is to force the one-percenters to pay even more. That is what liberals refer to as social justice, which they believe is better than just plain old-fashioned justice because it allows them to stack the deck. That, in a nutshell, is not only a good reason to never vote for liberals, but an equally good reason not to play cards with them.

Recently, Obama announced that seven out of 10 millionaires to whom he’s spoken -- and those are generally the only people to whom he speaks without using a Teleprompter -- agreed that they thought it would be a swell thing if they paid income taxes at an even higher rate than they presently pay them. What he failed to mention is why, in that case, they don’t simply write a bigger check. He has also neglected to mention why it is that he doesn’t pay more. What the heck is stopping him? Shouldn’t a leader lead by example?

As it so happens, I have a solution that should satisfy both Democrats and Republicans. As everyone from pediatricians to Mary Poppins knows, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. So why not sweeten April 15th by combining Tax Day with a super lottery? Wouldn’t people be more likely to pay what they owe or even a little bit more if they stood to win, say, thirty or forty or fifty times the amount they paid? Suddenly, I’m willing to wager, even those people who currently pay nothing would be eager to enter the sweepstakes.

The question I constantly ask myself is why it’s inevitably people like me who have to come up with these simple solutions when it’s guys like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke who get paid big bucks, get invited to address congressional committees and who never do anything but make bad economic problems worse?

Moving on, it recently occurred to me that the political playbook for liberals comes to us straight from old-fashioned melodramas. Whether the stage director is James Carville, Howard Dean, Rahm Emanuel, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or David Axelrod, the job is easy as pie. He or she merely explains to blacks, gays, college students, union members and illegal aliens, “You’ll play the damsel in distress. The Republicans will play the mustachioed villain trying to throw granny out the door and into a snowstorm, while simultaneously trying to have his dastardly way with you. And we, of course, will play the dashing hero who rushes in to save the day, not to mention your honor.”

And, just like “The Drunkard,” which ran for years and years, it doesn’t appear that Democrats ever intend to change even a single line of corny dialogue. Why would they when the old chestnut continues to draw crowds and standing ovations. By this time, even the audience has learned when to boo and hiss on cue.

Finally, I don’t know how things will finally play out for Herman Cain. As I sit here, things don’t look good. It’s not that I have any reason to believe that he sexually harassed any of the women who were paid off by the National Restaurant Association. My inclination is to suspect that he did nothing untoward, and that his accusers merely saw a golden opportunity to get an organization to cough up some dough to avoid time-wasting and potentially expensive lawsuits.

Having said that, I don’t know why Mr. Cain wasted a lot of time pretending he was unaware of the payoffs and, like Bill Clinton parsing “is,” pretended to be confused by the words “settlement” and “arrangement.”

I also had a problem with his double-talk about abortion. He had already disturbed me when he candidly admitted that he had no idea what “the right to return” meant when applied to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Although it’s comforting to hear Mr. Cain say he will surround himself with smart people once he’s in the White House, what guarantee do I have that his smart people will be any smarter than Obama’s advisors?

And while I sometimes get tired of seeing presidential candidates dragging their wives around during campaigns, I find it puzzling that I have never laid eyes on Mrs. Cain, although I did once get to see their 43-year-old wedding photo on TV.

As I said before, I have no reason to believe that Mr. Cain is a serial sexual harasser. What’s more, I like his voice, his demeanor and his smile. In fact, I like him, which is more than I can usually bring myself to say about any politician. However, I was mystified that when he finally managed to recall a time when he and one of his accusers were standing in his office, he apparently told the woman that she and his wife were the same height. What?! I’m not suggesting that was a come-on or that he was flirting with her. But, quite honestly, try as I have, I simply can’t picture the scene.

I am 71 years old and I have never had occasion to say those particular words to any female. I can’t even imagine a circumstance in which I would. I mean, unless the woman happened to be 2-foot-7 or 7-foot-two, what would be so doggone coincidental about two women who were both, say, in the normal 5’2” to 5’7” range that anyone in his right mind would feel called upon to make such a goofy observation?
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.