One year and counting to the Great American Nose Pinching

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. The quote which launched Camelot and all the glory of American Exceptionalism that adorned it.

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50+ years later, I ask you, if we knew then what we know now, would those classic words have made it to the ears and archived soul of the world? If JFK had to suffer the ’vetting’ that Herman Cain is now enduring, would he have politically survived? The current process would have eliminated not only a lesser man but some of the greats as well. Back before we were politically correct and felt welcome to crawl through every orifice of a candidate’s life from the day before that soul was born, honor was presumed even if not present. If ancestral public figures had to subject themselves to the high colonic fact-purging of Herman Cain, would any of us know about MLK’s great dream or the need to realize that dream in order to realize credible American Exceptionalism? I doubt it and if you look at it objectively, you would not either. I do not see a high tech lynching of Herman Cain. I see a difficult but golden opportunity to demonstrate grace under fire. I see a multi-talented problem solver who is blessed with an abundance of common sense. I see a focused, capable and morally balanced patriot who is just crazy enough to leave his lucrative private sector career to serve the public interest. But that’s what honorable problem solvers do. When they see a broken wheel, they stop what they are doing to help their neighbor get back on their feet.

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I do not see a vendetta against Cain, it is just his turn in the box. His ratings were good so it was an opportune time to attack and hopefully distract from his message. Next month there will be another pinata. Sara Palin was last year’s kickball and they did not let up on her 'til they drew blood from everyone in her gene pool. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why ‘they’ do that? IF not, it's because the answer is simple and embarrassing. THEY DO IT BECAUSE IT WORKS. There is a large constituency of fools who listen to the wind and hear more than there is in it. When all is said and done, ‘they’ will move on hoping that we don’t notice what was not found or proved. “They’ hope we will remember their wind and fingerpointing rather than how a good man helped us to believe in ourselves both personally and collectively. I don’t hope Herman Cain just weathers this storm, I trust him to stand tall and proud. He will own words of wisdom and tips for survival he can pass on to the next object of the anger of ‘they’. Anger is a secondary emotion and is most often born of fear. “They” fear intelligence and integrity as neither is within their grasp. The final result has already been determined by the Republican Party. It matters little who you want or what you do. The RNC wants Mitt Romney, and they will throw all others to the wolves while they circle the wagons around him. But, if they succeed, the 2008 process will repeat itself wherein one has to step into a voting booth and hold their nose while they make a decision called ‘who stinks less’ ? And the overwhelming evidence of this eventuality is right in front of us on the world’s biggest stage and wielding the world’s loudest microphone. Witness what happens when the wagons are pulled in around a candidate so the rest of us peasants don’t know what the ‘vetting’ found until after it is too late. I started this piece with a question and I will end it the same way. If you knew in October 2008 what you know now about the Manchurian candidate who skewed our government as we knew it, what would you have done to stop him? Which begs 2 questions…..What are you going to do about it and what are you waiting for?

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