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!

Ask Crankyjewishguy Vol. 11: Which Way Does the Wind Blow?

As readers of crankyjewishguy (CJG) know, he takes great pleasure in answering questions from readers seeking wisdom and enlightenment, and goodness knows so many CJG readers are. It's sad, really, that this is where they turn for advice because it shows a certain desperation. CJG suspects these lost souls come to him having exhausted their psychiatrists, friends, and rabbis (and other clergy). But there's no doubt they have come to the right place.

Today's question comes, remarkably enough, from GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. CJG isn't sure if the question is political or meteorological, though.

Dear CJG:

Which way is the wind blowing?

Desperately seeking a compass,

Mitt Romney
On the Road in my Escalade in Iowa

Dear Mr. One-Term Governor of Massachusetts:

What an interesting question from the guy fellow GOP presidential candidate John Huntsman and, CJG might note, fellow member of the Church of Mormon called "a well-lubricated weather vane." Your question is simple on the surface, but perhaps more complex than you realize. But judging from the American flag flying outside the Starbucks where CJG works rent-free he would say, "north at about 8 mph."

But CJG suspects your question is really a philosophical one. In Massachusetts, where the winds tend to blow to the left, you flew the kite of reproductive rights, universal health care and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Now, running in the GOP primaries where the wind blows right at about 200 mph with occasional gusts to 300 mph, you hoisted the sail of water boarding, climate change denial, repealing health care and the anthropomorphication of corporations. (If you don't know what anthropomorphication means, CJG suggests asking Rick Perry.) With all due respect, CJG suggests you seek out a quiet, windless retreat and try and figure out what you really believe in, if anything. Does that answer your question?

The weather vane atop Mitt Romney's La Jolla
mansion, the one he uses so he can tack
with the political winds.

On a separate note today, CJG notes that the GOP candidate du jour who is not Mitt, Newt Gingrich, acknowledged today that he had a more extensive relationship with Freddie Mac, the U.S. backed mortgage giant, than previously disclosed. Bloomberg is reporting Newt and/or his "consulting" firm received somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.6 to $1.8 in fees for "strategic advice" over a nine to ten year period that ended, ironically enough, in 2008. Given Freddie's role in the 2008 economic collapse, and its enormous debt, CJG surmises that Newt's advice may have been a tad off the mark. But here's the real laugh line; Newt says he wasn't hired as a lobbyist but in his capacity as a historian. Oh, really? One who just happened to be a former Speaker of House of Representatives? Like there weren't any non-government connected historians around? And since Newt's area of expertise, history-wise, seems to be the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, one wonders what expensive advice a mortgage lender would need from such a historian. How to use a musket?

Seriously, does this ring true to you? No doubt Newt will be out there promising that if elected he's going to change the culture in Washington. Sure thing, Newt. It's enough to make CJG want to give Mitt another look and CJG doesn't even vote Republican. But it is kind of understandable. The third Mrs. Newt has very expensive tastes and how else is a guy supposed to get a million dollar line of credit from Tiffany's?

"Oh, Newt, please buy me that nice monument in
the background!"

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.

Where Have You Gone CJG?

If you're like crankyjewishguy (CJG), you've probably been wondering where he's been the past two weeks. Well, now that the statute of limitations has run he can tell you that he was on a privately funded mission to try and find Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora. Imagine CJG's surprise when he learned bin Laden had just escaped the region ten years ago.

CJG figured that by the time he got back his inbox would be overloaded with e-mail messages from people all over the world wondering what had happened to him, asking when he was going to blog again, and begging him to return to the keyboard. Instead, yesterday he had one e-mail from his brother in Boca Raton saying, "what happened to your blog." It's so nice to be missed.

The truth is CJG was finding it difficult to keep up with the demands of a daily blog even though he generally has nothing else to do. But in recent weeks, Mr. and Mrs. CJG have been on deadline for a book they are writing together, an effort to see if a marriage can stand the strain of living and working together. Check back with CJG in a few weeks. If you see him on J-Date it didn't work out so well.

So, what's been happening in the world during CJG's absence? So little changes. Donald Trump continues to ride the GOP Crazy Train, sending his own investigators to Hawaii to try and prove the president wasn't born there. Mitt Romney formed an exploratory committee to try and find out if he has any core convictions. Half Baked Alaska continues to try and master the English language with limited success. And the Boston Red Sox continue to be the worst team in baseball despite having the second highest payroll. Go Pirates!

In other news, the Catholic Church continued to cover itself in glory when a former Bishop in Belgium made light of accusations he abused his nephews by saying it was just a little game that involved "fondling" and that he was never naked. The extent of the Church's little abuse problem seems as limitless as its efforts to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

Air traffic controllers across the country are dozing off in droves and planes landing unassisted. Predictably, the controller's union says napping is necessary. Maybe, but not when you're the only guy on duty. I need to nap sometimes, too, but I make sure I'm not driving when I do. Scientists say naps make us more alert when we wake and CJG buys that, but when planes are landing with a controller asleep at the switch, that's not good.

So, dear readers, here's CJG's plan. He's not going to blog every day. He's going to blog whenever the spirit moves him, hopefully about once a week. If you want to know when a new blog post goes up, subscribe to the blog if you can figure out how. CJG can't help you there because he doesn't understand it himself. Or, just check in once in a while. As always, all CJG blog posts will be rigorously fact-checked by the staff of Congresswoman from Pluto, Michelle Bachmann, the dingbat who thought the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought in New Hampshire and that the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery. CJG has to go now because the clueless guy sitting next to him at Starbucks is under the misimpression that he's in his own office and that we all like listening to him talk on the phone. Away two weeks in Tora Bora but CJG's pet peeves remain intact.

Crazy Mike Huckabee: Did You Know He Grew Up in Mauritania?

The past week has made one thing very clear: the man who has the answers to America's biggest problems is Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. He is the only politician with the courage and moral clarity to cut through all the clutter and get at what's really ailing America: Natalie Portman's pregnancy. By putting the unwed actresses's pregnancy where it belongs -- on the front pages of every major and minor news outlet in the nation -- Huckabee, who just happens to be flogging his new book, "The Hope of Audacity: My Childhood as a Peul Tribesman in Mauritania," also managed to take the heat off another floundering politician who made a major gaffe last week when he claimed, falsely, that President Obama grew up in Kenya -- a politician named Mike Huckabee. This is all part of a clever P.R. campaign, of course, because now everyone is wondering what ridiculous thing Mike Huckabee will say next and is paying unusually close attention to a man whose most notable accomplishment in recent years has been losing 110 pounds. Can you tell which of these photos was before and which was after? (No, that is not W.C. Fields in the top photo.)

The person who has to be most frustrated with the sudden interest in crazy Mike Huckabee is Half Baked Alaska. The former governor of Alaska hasn't been in the news for two or three days, which seems like an eternity given how her every inanity is typically given saturation coverage. It looks like the GOP presidential race is going to boil down to who can say the craziest things and generate the most controversy over issues that have nothing to do with making life better for average Americans. It used to be you had to watch Art Linkletter interviewing a half dozen 7 and 8-year-olds in his "Kids Say the Darndest Things" to get laughs like this. Now you just have to watch FOX News.

Hypocrite of the Week: Mitt Romney

Last night, Mitt Romney, the former governor of crankyjewishguy's (CJG) adopted home state of Massachusetts, who rolls like a tumbleweed through America (i.e. whichever way he thinks the political wind is blowing), once again blasted President Obama on the economy. Apparently, Mitt was at one of his vacation homes outside the solar system when Bush was president because since Obama took office the stock market has nearly doubled, the 800,000 jobs a month we were losing at the end of Bush's second term has been turned into job creation, most recently 190,000 new jobs last month, and unemployment, while still high, is the lowest it's been in two years.

Mitt Romney in New Hampshire turning right.

CJG didn't see last night's event, but if Mitt was true to form he was tying himself in rhetorical knots trying to explain to the right wing zealots he's now courting that the universal health care plan with a public option he put in place as governor doesn't preclude his being a fierce critic of the Obama plan, which is quite similar to the Massachusetts plan except that it doesn't have a public option because that, of course, would be like turning the United States into the Soviet Union with its gulags, death panels and Siberian work camps.

This Ken doll's constant shape-shifting is embarrassing to everyone except himself because Mitt's only bedrock conviction is that he deserves to be president. CJG will give him this, however: he stands one great head of hair above the other obvious contenders for the GOP nomination, but CJG is waiting to see how answers the three inevitable question that will determine whether he has what it takes to appeal to today's modern Republican voter: (1) which country, outside the United States, did Barack Obama grow up in; (2) on what day in history did God put human beings, fully formed, on Earth, and (3) why did God make the Earth flat when round would have been so much more practical?