Posted on 11/23/2011 8:24:43 PM PST by TitansAFC
"I'm not supposed to know anything about foreign policy," said Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain the other day after fumbling a question about President Obama's actions in Libya. "Because you run for president [people say] you need to have the answer. No, you don't! No, you don't!" His dearth of knowledge and interest in foreign policy was on full display in last night's GOP debate....
...On the Patriot Act, Mr. Cain was even more hazy. "If there are some areas of the Patriot Act that we need to refine, I'm all for that. But I do not believe we ought to throw out the baby with the bathwater." Again, he wouldn't specify which areas of the Patriot Act he disagreed with or thought should be amended. Neither would he say with any clarity whether he'd support an Israeli strike on Iran to destroy its nuclear weapons program.....
....Finally, when asked whether he would support a no-fly zone over Syria, he muttered that he would rather "work with our allies in the region to put pressure to be able to try and get our allies and other nations to stop buying oil from Syria." (The European Union implemented an oil embargo against Syria in September.) Then he pivoted to "growing this economy....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Thank you for correcting that ...heard the same thing reported on FOX yesterday; so, it is worth repeating. It also says something about the level of dishonesty in the media when reporting about Herman Cain ...changing “everything” to “anything” totally changes the meaning of the sentence.
The examples you list demonstrate why we shouldn’t elect someone as president who tells us merely that he would listen to experts, consider the facts and decide what is best: people with different political philosophies will come to different conclusions, and so it is important for us to understand what someone’s approach is going into the office.
Cain hasn’t a clue, so we can’t have a clue as to what he would do as president.
For me it’s not just knowledge but what one does with it. I know history teachers with an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of US History and they’re still raving moonbats. Knowledge is very different than wisdom. Knowledge is dispensed at every Ivy League college in the country. We’ve had a number of leaders from them in the past 20 or so years. Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, those awards aren’t handed out in boxes of Cracker Jacks. For all of Clinton’s knowledge, even his ability to practically inhale (perhaps that’s not the right word to use with him) facts he lacked wisdom and that was key to his downfall.
Consider: you can drop a green LCpl into a war zone in a foreign land with a culture & language he barely understands and where he’s confronted with a situation he’s never experienced before. Yet, he can make the exact right decision on the spur of the moment. Would it help if he knew more about the people? Perhaps, but there was much more to consider than “facts”. Drop an expert in (name your war torn country here) in place of the LCpl and he’s liable to get the entire squadron killed. No one would argue the LCpl knows much less than the “expert”. Heck, he’s probably been given little more than a basic briefing. What he does have is the ability to make an extremely critical decision based on the (few) facts he knows and the situation as it exists. Meanwhile, the expert is still assessing options A & B when the bullet flies through his chest. The expert is important but the decisonmaker is critical.
While experts are, without a doubt, who you want for in depth research, analysis and briefings, big picture guys are good at what they do (making decisions based on information the “experts” bring them). And they have enough confidence in themselves and their ability to find a solution so that they don’t waste time second guessing themselves. “Ideas” have a lot of gray areas but decisions are usually black or white.
“Experts” are convinced they know everything and don’t need others’ advice. People who readily acknowledge their shortcomings are keenly aware of their strengths and aren’t so wrapped up in their own egos to ask for advice from people who DO have specialized expertise in critical areas. And, because their ability to make good decisions (which is THEIR particular expertise) depends on having the best information available they’re “experts” at finding the best experts . Being aware of one’s limitations tends to make people better able to consider a variety of options and ideas (and much more quickly) than someone wallowing in information overload and afraid to make a mistake.
We’ve becomed conditioned to believe our leaders need to have certain kinds of knowledge instead of certain kinds of skills. It’s why we’ve ended up with an entrenched political class. Everyone thought David Brooks was an arrogant twit when he said we should leave governing to the experts, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. “Well, the things happening now are too important to trust to a novice” (i.e. someone who may have great leadership skills but isn’t plugged in to a political machine at one level or another). There’s a certain irony in the fact that many people think the nation is at too critical of a tipping point to trust the EXECUTIVE branch to an...EXECUTIVE. For myself I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that this time in our history is too important to continue doing what we’ve always done. That’s the definition of insanity.
I just want someone with the same common sense as the average American. People who spend too much time in the rarified air of the permanent political class forget that 1+1=2. You can play with the numbers all you want and you aren’t ever going to get it to equal 73 but “experts” generally manage to convince themselves they can. Besides, you can find experts on Iran, Islam, Russia, palm reading, energy policy, coal mining, horror films, making fudge, etc. We don’t have a problem finding experts. We need visionaries. Cain is a visionary.
Cindie
-”I’m not supposed to know anything about foreign policy,”
-”Because you run for president [people say] you need to have the answer. No, you don’t! No, you don’t!”
I was defending Cain because it seemed like he was trying to give a good answer to a shabby question, but this pretty much kills that.
He's perfected this approach to foreign policy, that's for sure.
Maybe Herman ought to reconsider going for the Senate again.
But, there were candidates who all strongly agreed on the principle of peace through strength and holding the line on the defense budget. Romney even suggested increasing it as the world grows more hostile, if I'm not mistaken.
Do you have a link to a Cain speech or interview where he suggested cuttiong back the military?
By the way, explain how we can have a strong national defense with no money.
Without a strong economy, we are in real serious trouble and Romney and Gingrich are more of the same.
Not the same as obummer, but the same as Bush.
Who do you support?
I would have been an avid Palin supporter, and I have since briefly turned to Cain and then Gingrich. I’m now resigned to our not having any really good options.
If I had to pick a best choice, I’d surprisingly now probably look toward Bachmann. I don’t think she has the least chance of winning and I think she’s in there to help Romney, so even thinking she’s the best option kind of bums me out. But she’s unqestionably IMO the strongest conservative running—in positions, core philosophy and spine. She has a good grasp of foreign and domestic issues and is able to express her views cogently.
I suspect, however, the nominee will be Romney.
I don’t think I’ve heard Cain suggest cutting back on military budgets. I would think he knows better.
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