Month: November 2011

"If Cain is guilty, then even apart from the adultery and bad judgment, it suggests a failure to believe that the rules applied to him; insufficient fear of consequences or exposure; and a not very nice attitude towards women. I personally hated those attributes in Bill Clinton, and I don’t see why they are less of a marker of something distasteful in a guy whose economic policies and personal demeanor I may like," – Lisa Schiffren, NRO.

We're right to withhold judgment until we learn more, and I sure hope the gag order is lifted for one woman's case. Having Cain describe the events as nothing across the national media, while she is required to stay silent does not seem fair to me. For the record, I believed Anita Hill and Paula Jones. And I think if the charges are true, then not only is Cain toast, he damn well should be.

Earlier today, the increasingly iconic figure, Cain campaign manager Mark Block, walked back accusations that the Perry campaign was behind the revelation of the sexual harassment settlements at the NRA. But on Hannity’s radio show, Cain himself dug in:

He accused Politico, which broke the story, of not having documentation for it. He accused the lawyer for one of his accusers of seeking fame. And he repeated his charge that Mr. Perry’s supporters were trying to undermine his campaign.

“He’s out there trying to stir up some stuff because he’s out there trying to get famous and make some money,” Mr. Cain said of the lawyer, Joel P. Bennett.

Asked whether he still thought Mr. Perry’s campaign planted the report, he said, “Let’s just say, there aren’t enough breadcrumbs that we can lay down that leads us anywhere else at this point in time.”

And now we also have the lovely example above of Rush Limbaugh – yes Rush Limbaugh – accusing others of fomenting scabrous racial stereotypes. And meanwhile, Cain has actually shown a minute gain in the latest polls, and has a ten point lead in South Carolina, and a five point lead in Iowa.

(By the way, has anyone else noticed that the color that RealClearPolitics has chosen for Santorum in their poll of polls chart is, er, brown.)

Afghanistan veteran Kevin Bell confesses [pdf] that he was tempted to torture detainees:

As it turned out, in spite of meeting all of the mission’s original information priorities, we were never able to confirm or deny the suspect’s involvement in the local ambushes. Part of me was glad that I hadn’t tortured him, but my conscience still haunted me.

Wasn’t it worth finding out the truth? What was wrong with me that I was so worried about following the law when my enemies had never considered it, torturing, threatening and murdering the local school teachers and truck drivers at whim? Who would speak of law and order for them? What about my dead soldier? I bore the weight of these questions alone as I didn’t want to burden my men. I wasn’t proud of it, but in the moment of truth all of the briefings on legal procedures and proper intelligence-gathering techniques meant almost nothing to me. 

Tom Ricks seconds Bell's recommendations about how to improve military ethics training to address this problem.

(Photo: Afghan detainees sit while guarded by US Marines from 1st Battalion 8th, Bravo during an operation in Musa Qala district of Helmand province on January 23, 2011. By Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP/Getty Images)

The rest of Europe's attitude – in a music video.

How often do you read something like this:

A previous version of this story mentioned that a source witnessed Cain and the woman entering a taxi together. This was incorrect. The previous version also mentioned that the woman awoke in Cain’s bed — the source only claimed that the woman awoke in Cain’s apartment. The previous version incorrectly attributed comments from one source to the other source.

Apart from that, what a scoop! Weigel makes the point here as well. Not only that, but PJM uses two anonymous sources to cite one anonymous claim. But Joe McGinniss’ book is “unattributed crap.” If an employee emerges who can testify to sex with Cain while on a work-related social event, then it matters a great deal, it seems to me. Especially if she thinks “he had taken advantage of me.” But on this sourcing, I don’t think we can know what truly happened at all. I guess we’ll find out.

Nate Silver gives him about a 50-50 shot at re-election. Chait thinks he's wrong:

Obama has a chance to have his approval rating rise simply by drawing a sharp contrast against the Republican nominee. In other words, incumbent approval rating isn't something that's independent of the opposing candidate. Voters may shape their view of the incumbent by making a comparison.

I have no idea. But Chait's point about Bush's approval ratings rising as Kerry settled in as his opponent is a valid one.

Alex Tabarrok argues against subsidizing certain college degrees:

The potential wage gains for college graduates go to the graduates — that’s reason enough for students to pursue a college education. We add subsidies to the mix, however, because we believe that education has positive spillover benefits that flow to society. One of the biggest of these benefits is the increase in innovation that highly educated workers theoretically bring to the economy.

As a result, an argument can be made for subsidizing students in fields with potentially large spillovers, such as microbiology, chemical engineering, nuclear physics and computer science. There is little justification for subsidizing sociology, dance and English majors.

Wilkinson defends economically inferior majors:

I don't think Mr Tabarrok accurately identifies why "we add subsidies to the mix". He's right that many of us hold that education is a boon to society. But this conviction is rooted less in growth theory than in a Jeffersonian faith in the importance of a well-informed, well-rounded citizenry.

A registered nurse for 47 years and a member of the National Nurses United, Kay McVay of Concord, California, joins hundreds of her fellow union members in a rally in Lafayette Square before marching to the U.S. Treasury Department on November 3, 2011 in Washington, DC. In the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement, members of various labor unions with the AFL-CIO joined the nurses in their call to tax financial transactions on Wall Street and around the world as a way of reducing the national debt. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

"I endorse Herman Cain. What he doesn't know, we'll teach him," – Pamella Geller.

Uh oh:

You know, I’ve had some great foreign policy conversations with Liz Cheney and with John Bolton, I mean, people who actually understand, intimately, where these countries are, why they think like they think.

As Isaac Chotiner notes, "these countries" were unspecified.