Adios, Herman!

Herman couldn't stand the heat so he got
out of the kitchen.

Crankyjewishguy (CJG) knows that there are millions of readers out there who depend on him for breaking news, so be prepared for this shocker: Herman Cain, beleaguered by accusations of sexual harassment and allegations of extramarital affairs, is “suspending” his presidential campaign, most likely until sometime in the 22^nd century. Republican voters fled Cain in droves as the allegations piled up, preferring instead a candidate with a proven record of marital infidelity, Newt Gingrich. Always seeking new levels of crazy, the GOP base is now just gaga over a disgraced former House speaker forced to leave Congress under an ethical cloud, whereupon he took up residence under another ethical cloud, taking millions in “consulting” fees from clients such as Freddie Mac even as he lambasted politicians for their associations with Freddie Mac lobbyists. In typical GOP fashion, Newt just changed the definition of lobbying so he could say he was never a lobbyist which is like saying water boarding isn’t torture because, well, because we say so. (Now fair is fair, Bill Clinton’s definition of sex excludes oral intercourse.)

Mitt Romney in his days at Bain Capital.

Now the person who must be ready to tear his million-dollar hair out about the latest turn of events in the GOP primary circus is Mitt Romney. As far as anyone knows, Massachusetts’s most handsome politician (sorry Scott Brown!) has been faithful to his wife, but even that’s not paying off as Republicans flee Cain for Gingrich. At least an extramarital affair would prove Romney has something other than ice in his veins. It would actually humanize him. Poor Mitt. If he were a thermostat the temperature would always read below freezing. Which is where his poll numbers are: frozen at 20%.

Actor John Hamm as Mitt Romney in the
remake of "It's a Wonderful Life." At Bain, Mitt
made millions buying companies and slashing
jobs and worker benefits -- a modern day Mr. Potter.

But let’s come back to horny Herman. Anyone who runs for president and doesn’t understand that their past behavior is going to become an issue obviously doesn’t know diddly squat about running for president. Has the guy never watched a previous campaign? And when you have absolutely no public record to talk about, you ‘d better be doubly prepared to have your entire life examined. After all, what else do we have to judge you on? How much pepperoni you put on your Godfather’s pizza? And it doesn’t help when you don’t know China has nukes and you aren’t sure why you disagree with Obama’s Libya policy because you aren’t sure what Obama’s Libya policy is. Cain, now nothing more than a punchline, was once the GOP front runner. What a party!

If I Only Had a Brain

Wow. Crankyjewishguy (CJG) hardly knows where to begin. This week proved it's a target-rich environment out there.

Let's start with last night's debate performance by Not Ready for Prime Time Rick Perry who couldn't remember one of the three federal agencies he is pledging to eliminate as president which is actually OK since his chances of becoming president just dropped to about negative 100%. Perry has come off as such a buffoon that he's probably also dealt a serious blow to being re-elected governor of whatever state he thinks he is governor of. CJG read a report that he recently signed an execution order for an inmate on death row in New Jersey only to be reminded by a senior aide that he is governor if Texas. "Is that next to Louisiana?" the incredulous governor was overheard to ask. As Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine writes this morning, "ultimately, Rick Perry is going to be remembered as the man too stupid to win this Republican nomination. That is a remarkable feat." 

Rick Perry demonstrates his technique for neutering a Texas Longhorn.

Then, of course, there's the brilliantly run Herman Cain campaign which confirmed to Sean Inanity that the son of one of Cain's accusers works for POLITICO, the news outlet that broke the Cain sexual harassment story. Booya! Nailed that sucker. Except that the guy in question used to work at POLITICO and now works for another news organization. An insignificant, minor discrepancy? Perhaps. But it turns out the guy isn't even related to the accuser; they just happen to have the same last name! Now that's rich!

If Herman Cain doesn't want anyone looking into past allegations of sexual harrassment, maybe he should run for office in Italy where the Prime Minister can have sex with an underage prostitute and still hold on to power, only to be undone by the country's faltering economy. After all, as former chairman of Godfather's Pizza, if anyone is entitled to honorary citizenship in Italy it would be Cain. CJG wants to repeat that he doesn't know if these allegations are true, but the women who have come forward so far seem credible and to argue that this is irrelevant is disingenuous. Character is important and if a candidate is a serial harasser of women, well then voters can decide how important it is to them. But Cain's denials and the way his campaign is flailing around trying to assign blame for how the story became public doesn't pass the smell test. CJG's personal opinion is that this isn't some conspiracy to bring down Herman Cain. Who needs one? When it comes to self-destruction he's running a close second to Rick Perry.

Justin Bieber Did What?

Can we come back to Herman Cain for a minute? Crankyjewishguy (CJG) is growing increasingly concerned that the Cain sexual harassment controversy is stealing much needed attention from a far more important issue -- whether 12 year-old Justin Bieber fathered a child with a star struck fan he invited backstage after one of his concerts. Not only is Bieber one the greatest artists of all time (and CJG isn't just talking music here, you can throw Monet, Shakespeare and Pee Wee Herman in there, too), but he's a future presidential candidate so this issue is more significant than your usual Inside Edition fodder. Bieber is also a job creator. (CJG knows Bieber is 17, so please, just go with it.)

Just call me "Dad."

NEWS FLASH: CJG just learned that Justin Bieber is never going to be president of the United States. He's Canadian. Too bad.

Nevertheless, how can the public be expected to pay proper attention to the Bieber controversy when the Cain affair is sucking up so much air? There's only so much of this "he said, she said, but the DNA doesn't lie" that the public can absorb at one time.

The details of the Bieber affair, as laid out in a law suit by Mariah Yeater, the woman in question, are, to put it mildly, interesting. Bieber, she claims, was a virgin and that the act, which occurred in the romantic setting of a bathroom, lasted thirty seconds. (No wonder it wasn't twins.) But CJG thinks it's just a wee bit curious that the biggest pop star on the planet needed to ask a complete stranger back stage in order to lose his innocence when women of all ages are probably offering to lend a hand.

Abstinence advocate and unwed
teenage mother Bristol Palin
and baby. Note boy scout in
background protecting her virtue.
Could that be Justin Bieber's baby?

Hopefully, the National Restaurant Association won't settle the Bieber case, too, because only in a courtroom will the truth come out. And when it does, CJG predicts it will be of absolutely no consequence.

A Pizza Man You Can't Refuse?

OK, crankyjewishguy (CJG) just found a ten foot pole so he's going to touch this Herman Cain controversy. Hope he doesn't electrocute himself.

Unless you've been traveling in Bulgaria for the past two weeks you probably know that GOP presidential candidate and former chairman of the Godfather's pizza chain is struggling to deal with revelations that he was twice accused of sexual harassment by female employees of a trade association of which he was president. The motto for Godfather's, by the way, is "a pizza you can't refuse." Maybe Cain thought that applied to the company chairman, too.

Outraged professional pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter immediately blamed liberals for the story arguing that liberals can't stand to see a conservative black man rising, as if this wouldn't be a story if we were talking about a white presidential candidate. (Hello, John Edwards.) But the Cain campaign itself didn't blame "liberals"; it blamed the Rick Perry campaign. And the Perry campaign blamed the Mitt Romney campaign. And Newt Gingrich said if any Republican candidate was responsible for leaking the sexual harassment story to the press they should be drawn and quartered as if it's better such things be swept under the carpet. Newt, of course, has good reason not to want bad behavior like this to become an issue: he's an admitted adulterer who left his cancer-stricken wife for another woman. It's getting a little bit like an Agatha Christie novel. CJG is waiting for the Romney campaign to blame Michael Dukakis.

Have I ever told you you look like Nancy Pelosi?

Apparently, fixing blame for how the story became public is more important than whether the original allegations had any merit. CJG has no idea whether they did or not, but he marvels that yet another feckless politician sallied forth on the winds of self-regard so high that it never occurred to him that a story like this, one way or another, was going to find daylight, especially when you're running for president of the United States. Dude, if you're running for president even your dental records are going to become public so there's no way the fact that your former employer paid cash settlements to your accusers, whether the allegations were true or not, isn't going to come out. And why shouldn't it? You want to be the leader of the free world? Then expect your life to be pried open. The mere fact that Cain seemed so utterly surprised and unprepared with a coherent, consistent response tells you a lot about his strategic planning skills, just as the fact that he didn't know China has nukes tells you something about his foreign policy qualifications. What next? Cain is going to tell us he can see Canada from his house?

CJG has this word of advice for Herman Cain. If you can't stand the heat, step away from the pizza oven.

A Universe of GOP Rising Stars

He's baaaaaaack! Crankyjewishguy (CJG) took a long break from his blog to go to the bathroom (yes, it took five months, but that's CJG's business). Actually, one reason CJG has been away is that he was finishing a book he wrote with Mrs. CJG that comes out next month. The marriage survived and the book is destined for greatness. The other reason, is that CJG decided to run for president as a Republican and has been building his campaign staff in the all important primary state of North Dakota where, next month, CJG will debate Michelle Bachmann on the subject of whether she is mentally competent. That should take about five minutes.

The new cast of "The Biggest Loser"? No, it's the 2011 GOP  field.
Note the presence of the Pillsbury Doughboy, third from left.
Tim Pawlenty, second from right, was voted off the island and Rick Perry
took his place only to find the surrounding waters way over his head.

Speaking of Michelle Bachmann, CJG has, of course, been closely following the circus known as the GOP race for president in which the idea seems to be to see who can say the most ridiculously stupid shit in hopes of getting the nomination. Rick Santorum's platform seems to be two pronged: the family is sacred and no one should have sex except under very special circumstances most of which have something to do with creating Christian families. Newt Gingrich, who by his own admission is the brightest of the candidates, thus damning himself with faint praise, looked at the wreckage of the U.S. economy and decided someone should go to jail -- not the CEOs of AIG, Lehmann Brothers, Countrywide or anyone else who actually had a prominent role in destroying the economy. No, Newt said Barney Frank and former Senator Chris Dodd should go to jail. Rick Perry, whose main qualification for the job appears to be incredible posture, apparently didn't realize that looking the part and acting the part are two different skill sets. Asked why there are one million children in Texas without health insurance, he immediately launched a blistering attack on Mitt Romney for hiring a lawn care company that employed an illegal alien to cut his grass thus drawing a illuminating connection between the two issues CJG had never made before.

Well, fancy me! Rick Perry as "yell leader"
at Texas A & M during his salad days.
The dog was later executed.

Speaking of immigration, the GOP field is doing what politicians do whenever times are tough: looking for a scapegoat. And what better scapegoat than illegal immigrants! They have no money or power. Let's blame them! So, who is the toughest hombre in the lot on this issue? Michelle Bachmann showed she is doubly tough on illegals by proposing not one fence along the entire US-Mexico border, but a double fence! Nice try, Michelle, but she never saw Herman Cain's solution coming: an electrified fence that would kill anyone trying to get across the border looking for a job as a delivery man for Godfather's Pizza. Cain is the new Ross Perot: a successful businessman with a simple solution for every complex problem. Most memorably, of course, his 9-9-9 tax plan that would raise taxes dramatically on the poor and the middle class while cutting them for Mitt Romney so he can fulfill his role as a "job creator."  The more Herman's ideas get exposed as lunacy the higher he rises in the GOP firmament. Please: someone call 9-1-1. Then, of course, there's good ol' Mitt Romney trying to come across as the everyman as he quadruples the size of his beachfront home in La Jolla, California and tells audiences that "corporations are people, too." He does have a point in that Mitt is a walking, talking corporation who specialized in taking over companies at Bain Capital then squeezing them dry for the cash while firing thousands of employees. He talks a good game about "job creation" but his real expertise is in job destruction and hair care products. Unlike many of his GOP competitors, Mitt cannot plead the insanity defense, but has there been a politician in recent memory so devoid of any core convictions? Trust CJG, Mitt Romney the presidential candidate and the Mitt Romney who was governor of Massachusetts are not the same person. Either that or the man has a serious case of multiple personality disorder.

Given the high quality of the GOP debates, CJG is amazed that no has taken the obvious line of attack against Perry yet: that if you rearrange the letters in Texas you get Taxes. If that doesn't set the Republican base on fire nothing will. The next time Michelle Bachmann is asked what color the sky is, she should go right at Perry on this.

Despite this, shall we say, lackluster GOP field, President Obama is in big trouble because everything that is wrong in the country today is his fault. You can take down bin Laden and Quaddafi (or Kadaffi or Qadaffy or Hanukah or Chanukkah, whatever) without a single American casualty, end the ten year war in Iraq, and finally make sure everyone is this country has health insurance, but unless you can fill, in three years, the 8 million jobs hole Bush left behind you're toast. So, help is on the way. As soon as the GOP regains power and can continue its massive wealth redistribution program in which the top 1% will soon have everything, they'll start using all that excess cash to create jobs on the plantation for the rest of us. CJG, for one, hopes to land a job as a surf board waxer at Mitt's place in La Jolla.

Man of the people, Mitt Romney, waves from his hot
air balloon above the 3,000 square foot La Jolla home
he is tearing down to build a 12,000 square foot home
in its stead.