Friday, November 4, 2011

Cain Enablers

The Cain campaign is enlisting some notable people to defend him: Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Jenni Sanford, the former wife of former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Both women have experience dealing with husbands who are accused of sexual harassment, and at least one knows what it’s like to be left at home while her spouse is off hiking the Appalachian Trail. Here’s the former Mrs. Sanford in an editorial in The State:

… Herman Cain’s lack of political experience makes him willing to propose bold ideas, to try new solutions to the challenges that face our nation. There’s a sense among the people disconnected from the system (myself included) that our political leaders aren’t listening, or can’t feel our pain. Cain clearly isn’t part of the permanent political class, because he has proposed a tax reform that would simplify our tax code, ending deductions and closing loopholes. Details aside, he is willing to think big, to challenge the status quo. Sadly, we now get to watch as the players who make up the system try to rip him to pieces.

[…]

I know this story well. A “fresh face” appears on the political scene and puts forth new proposals that challenge the status quo and then is attacked viciously on his proposals and then his character….

Oh, so it’s his ideas that people find objectionable, not his character. Funny, but when it was Bill Clinton who was the harasser, it was all about character.

The subtext to this and every other GOP sex scandal — Vitter, Gingrich, Cain — is that boys will be boys and that as long as they’re pursuing the right-wing agenda, it’s all good.

That’s cynicism with a lovely honey glaze on top.