"... I was watching Ron Paul being interviewed on some news show, and he was talking his usual gibberish... I mean, my lord that man spouts an awful lot of nonsense... but Charles Krauthammer was one of the people prodding the esteemed candidate with questions and Charlie, with roguish devilry, accordingly asked Paul to try and make sense of his opinion expressed in last debate concerning how fences built to keep out illegals would eventually be turned against honest citizens for the purposes of imprisoning them, as it were, in the country apparently against their will... an outright bizarre statement so detached from reality as to suggest the onset of dementia in the speaker... and Krauthammer, obviously not a fan of Paul's inveterate nonsense, was enjoying watching the esteemed candidate flop about incoherently on the hook of this absurdity... I mean he was reduced to just spitting out chains of words regardless of any recognizable meaning being attached to them... and it occurred to me that here was this foppish curmudgeon, of entirely marginal significance who, even if favored with ideas that had any chance of being implemented was simply too old to ever be a serious candidate for president, and yet there he was being treated as a serious candidate for president by people who, at least certainly in Krauthammer's case, didn't consider him a serious candidate for president... and one realized that this race wasn't a dire battle between the best and brightest of our society for the right to contend against the evil Obama for the most important job in the world... it was rather a sideshow where the vain, the arrogant, the naive, the delusional, the pompously misguided and the self righteously preening were invited, through some dark twist of fate, to step forward on a stage and speak as if the void were not opening up beneath them..."

To continue with the Cain bashing [although since I think the criticism is entirely deserved the connotations of 'bashing' may miss the mark] in reference to the man's apparent absolute dearth of both knowledge of or interest in foreign policy and foreign affairs [when you hear him talk about these things it's not hard at all to imagine that the highest, most involved level of exposure he's had to these subjects comes from an associate's second hand retelling of a Rush Limbaugh rant] and in regards to the upcoming debate devoted to related issues - I've read some expressing hope that Cain is taking his shortcomings in this area seriously and consequently sitting down with a few good books to study up in earnest preparation for the event - because of course the important thing here is not that he actually know what the hell he's talking about but rather that he knows enough so as to effectively pretend that he knows what the hell he's talking about. There's no way not to be disturbed by this - not just by the naive arrogance of Cain himself, but possibly even more so by his supporters who actually seem to have convinced themselves that any of this makes any sense whatsoever.

This is not a skill set one simply acquires over a fortnight of book browsing - knowledge of and a keen sense for historical tendencies, military affairs and macro strategy, foreign policy and 'great game' politicking are not things one simply adopts one day as sort of an unwilling concession in pursuit of a something else - these abilities and insights are developed over time, through practice and dialectic, by people who actually care about the subjects and understand the dire import of them - to imagine it is somehow otherwise as a convenience in service of rationalizing a dubious political agenda is flat out nuts, crazy, utterly delusional.

It's the exact mistake people made with Obama - and now republicans think it sane to repeat the error viz Cain? Has the country lost its freaking god damn mind?!

The vulnerabilities and limitations of democracy seem to be becoming increasingly exposed - maybe we're just going through a bad patch - but if a polity loses, either through its own flaws or from a lack of meaningful choice, the ability to elect leaders who, because of their applicable knowledge, skills and experience, actually have the capacity to serve the interests of the country well, then how is survival possible? It isn't I'd think - unless through some indeterminate metamorphosis - an evolutionary step, possibly - but every change brings with it winners and losers and there's no guarantee we'd belong to the former.

It's not a good thing for the supposed greatest nation on earth that a year removed from the election it's already clear that the only tolerable option for next occupant of the White House is Mitt Romney, a guy who wins - a guy who, if he wins, does so simply because he's the least bad of the lot. Not a good thing at all.

Peter Wehner says what I've been thinking for awhile now - one, Romney is clearly the only credible choice left in the republican field, it's not even open to questioning, but that so many on the right seem entirely unable to accept that reality is disturbing - I mean, really, how is Herman Cain a legitimate contender? The man is a fucking moron - he exudes the facile charms of a snake oil salesman - he's like Obama except not as bright, less qualified and more transparently false in his posturings. Wehner then draws attention to the other disturbing thing - this is lining up to be possibly one of the most important elections in America's history - that so many quality candidates decided not to run  given the circumstances leaves one despairing over the country's ability to meet the challenges ahead. It's going to be an election that anyone with a clear idea of things will find impossible to take comfort in no matter the outcome - a year out and clearly Romney must be the next president and yet there were at least five guys I wanted to get into the race and would have easily taken over him - but here we are, it's Romney by default, fine - it's not like the man's a light weight without resume - but he may not even end up as the nominee for Christ sake! And if not? Four more years of the Obama travesty? Herman Cain? How can a thoughtful person not be subsumed by despair.

Jennifer Rubin has written a very nice little blog post on Cain that anyone even remotely imagining the man as a legitimate presidential candidate should read. As I've said before, if it's Cain vs Obama in 2012 we are in deep, deep trouble - it will be clear evidence that there's something seriously wrong with our political system, or, if not with the system itself, then with a culture that seems incapable or unwilling to bring sound, unbiased and well reasoned judgement to bear on the question of leadership. I mean, ok, I get why people wanted to believe in the story of Obama - I thought it was sad that so many could so easily embrace mindless delusion and then with a straight face try and pass it off as intelligent insight - but, whatever, I get the whole Obama thing. But Herman Cain? Really? This is what we've come to?

Commentary joins in on the slamming of Cain. It's more than a little bit frightening that a guy like this can be viewed as a legitimate presidential candidate, even if that view ends up having a short shelf life. Sure, Obama was lacking in vital experiences and knowledge relevant to the job, and that deficiency has shown up in his performance - but at least he could fake it [although I guess that ability makes Obama a much more dangerous incompetent than Cain] - Cain can't even offer up the pretense of understanding concerning some of the most pressing and profound issues the country's chief executive will face. We're not talking about managing a chain of restaurants here - this is a freaking empire! What the hell is going on!? I'm really starting to worry that my prediction is going to come true: that Obama would be so bad a president and rouse through this awfulness such distemper and partisan ill will in the electorate that he'd end up preparing the way for the coming of something even worse.

This Iranian assassination story is odd, as in doesn't appear to make any sense - what would the Iranian Republican Guard have to gain by killing a Saudi diplomat on American soil? To compromise Ahmadinejad, possibly - but the serious fallout invited seems to make the prize not worth the risk. Possibly all just an elaborate setup to trick the US into making a false accusation - that's intriguing, but if true seems to me the Iranians would already be leaking info in support of that gambit, and not seeing that. Could I guess just be some rogue operative or lose canon who took it upon himself to start a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia - but if that were the case I would guess US authorities would be aware of the 'off the reservation' nature of the scheme and therefore have kept it quiet in order to stave off the tensions now on the rise. Couldn't possibly be Obama inflating things for some dubious political gain, could it? Hard to believe that since it'd be a really stupid thing to do.

But if not any of those things, one's left believing the attempt was serious, that the Iranians, or more accurately the Guard's Quds Force, had some strategy in mind here that actually made sense to them - which would mean Iran just bumped itself up a few notches on the 'things that really worry the shit outta me' chart.

It occurs to me - hardly brilliant in any way that it does - but still it occurs to me that 'polls' have become a fixture of news reporting and political media in general - and yet polls are stupid - and it never becomes a topic of discussion just how stupid they are - the status quo has become to just accept them as somehow a reflection of something substantial - polls ostensibly defining what people 'think' about a particular policy especially annoy because even a cursory scan of the average democratic polity reveals that the average voter knows very little and understands less - a poll defining what people feel about a certain thing tells me nothing other than  that people tend to be very mutable and fragile emanations of a largely unknowable darkness - what am I supposed to do with that information? - but political polls also frustrate with their insistence on being taken seriously - evidence strongly suggest that only those polls taken near an actual time of decision manage to capture a semblance of truth because it's clear people really only start paying attention [a term used loosely] when they feel they have no other choice but to pay attention - and yet here we are months removed from any meaningful elections and polls germinate with abandon on a near daily basis - to tell us what though? - for instance the Wall Street Journal poll this morning showing Cain as leading the republican presidential race - what that tells me is that there's a significant portion of right wing voters who are 'angry' and will throw their support behind anybody, anybody who seems to give voice to this anger - these people are idiots, possibly well meaning idiots and possibly idiots angry for just cause, but idiots all the same - because Romney is quite obviously the only credible candidate left but if a year from now we're watching a presidential election between Obama and Herman Cain well, this country is finished, raise the white flag, we're done - that's what that poll tells me - and yet the Journal publishes it and other news sources report on it as it were saying something different and not at all implying that the country may indeed be fucking doomed.

Well, my brilliant strategy for Christie's ascension to presidential contender turned out to not be Christie's brilliant strategy which is disappointing for several reasons, not the the least of which is I thought my plan was indeed quite clever, but now it can't be since it isn't.

So the default candidate now becomes Romney - there's much to like there, since 2008 he's certainly matured into a much more palatable option - if one can forget he's a Mormon - and there's your problem since the values voters on the uber right are not particularily disposed to forget such things - in fact some 'preacher' spoke out yesterday about Romney not being suitable for the presidency because of his belonging to a cult - so the inglorious game is on and once again we get to witness the disheartening spectacle of democracy eating its tail.

No doubt this self immolation accounts for much of Herman Cain's rise, a protesting expression from the uber righties who choke on Romney's relative moderateness - at least I hope it's a token protest - if it morphs into something real then my doom sayer prediction viz Obama could sadly be realized, ie that Obama's leftist agenda would lead to such enraged partisanship that it'd end up empowering yet another presidential candidate entirely ill-suited to the job - Cain would certainly be that - I mean when speaking he challenges Sarah for confused gibberish - and apparently he knows absolutely nothing about foreign policy - yeah, Cain would prove an Obama coda that might just put an end to the republic - it would be hard to survive three horrible presidents in a row.