There’s Always a Place for Herman Cain in Our Hearts and Our Government
It is time for Herman Cain to step down as a candidate for president and vie for a more suitable position befitting his social and moral values. In the not too distant future, a Supreme Court position will be open. What could be more appropriate for Mr. Cain than to join his political and ethically challenged colleague Clarence Thomas on the High Court. There is always room for one more sociopath in any government institution. It would be no surprise for a President Bachmann or a President Perry to appoint someone like Mr. Cain to the Supreme Court. He knows so little about economics, foreign policy and government that he really isn’t presidential material. On the Supreme Court, however, even the judges who know about law don’t seem to apply it anyway. What a perfect position for the man; noone will be able to tell if he’s ignorant or just doesn’t care!
Republicans aren’t the only ones, of course, who run unqualified or clueless candidates, but they do seem to be the only ones to run morbidly ignorant ones. Gore and Kerry, both apparently possessing above average intelligence quotients, much like Newt Gingrich, seemed to keep their IQ’s in their back pockets for much of their campaigns. “Not” stupid men, nonetheless they ran quite stupid campaigns run by quite unqualified campaign directors. Hillary Clinton, somehow chose the dedicated but poorly qualified Terry McAuliffe, fresh off of the Kerry debacle, to run her “can’t miss” presidential campaign. McAuliffe chose Mark Penn, an apparently unethical pollster instead of veterans Carville and Begala, the two men who had orchestrated her husband’s presidential victories. These were the same two campaign figures rebuffed by the Kerry people until it was too late to save his campaign, and when Penn was finally fired and McAuliffe finally came to his senses, it was too late to save Hillary’s “can’t miss” campaign and possibly the country.
Meanwhile, if it is time for Mr. Cain to step down, it certainly seems to be an equally appropriate time for the merciful resignation of Eric “Uncle Tom” Holder, unfortunate choice of President Obama for his Attorney General. My guess is that the apparently amoral and sociopathic Holder may have been the only candidate the two equally amoral and sociopathic Senators from Alabama would approve. Taking the easy way out, the neophyte president chose his friend who had helped so much in his election campaign. Unfortunately, it does not appear that he could have made a worse choice, no matter how hard he might have tried.
Holder’s history as an administrator within the Justice System was apparently superlative, while his body of work as a practicing attorney has been, shall we say, largely “disgusting.” In the Clinton administration Holder bragged that he was going after “Medicare Fraud.” Going after five or six billion dollars in Medicare fraud, largely targeting physicians, many of whom were innocent patsies and conveniently ignoring more than one hundred billion in corporate Medicare fraud, his agents took bribes, violated civil rights, all under Holder’s watchful eye. Meanwhile it was Holder’s law firm that represented presidential candidate Bush in the 2000 recount travesty in which the state of Florida was deprived of its duly mandated recount of votes based on the small size of the margin of victory. What was even more telling was his failure to arrest Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris for purposely transferring the names of thousands of innocent voters to the rolls of felons with the same or similar names, depriving them of the right to vote. Of course, most of them proved to be African American; no problem for Holder.
In fact, looking at Mr. Holder’s practice, inside and outside the government, one would be hard pressed to find cases in which he had defended anyone innocent or prosecuted anyone who was guilty. The state of Florida currently has had a huge problem with the proliferation of heavy duty narcotic prescriptions and direct dispensing by clinics known as “pill mills.” The current governor, despite being the CEO of a company that was fined 1.2 billion dollars for defrauding Medicare, pleading ignorance, was exonerated by the “Justice Department.” After being forced to sell his interests in the “pill mills” he owned, the governor was finally persuaded to help enact laws limiting this “terrible” proliferation of scheduled pain killers. The question that most people ignore, however is: “Why are companies permitted to produce so many more of these “pills” than could possibly be used?” (The same goes for automatic weapons for that matter.) Actually they are not. In fact, in 2004 Purdue Pharma one of many companies to be fined for producing far more narcotics than their license permitted, was defended by an attorney named Eric Holder.[1]
One day last month, the Republican Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles was busy signing Troy Davis’ death warrant, absolving police and prosecutors of any of theiir obvious manipulation and manufacture of evidence.[2] At the same time, Attorney General Eric Holder was hard at work in Iowa defending police and district attorneys who had definitely framed two men for murder some twenty five years ago. Their contention being proven, with the able assistance of Mr. Holder, their claim of violation of civil rights was nonetheless rejected by the Supreme Court. The Court let it be known that a U.S. citizen does not have a right to expect not to be framed by his government. Clearly there must be a place on the Supreme Court or high in the Justice Department for a man with the moral integrity and knowledge of the law such as Herman Cain. Even beloved Republican heroes like Clarence Thomas and Eric Holder can’t serve forever!
Allen Finkelstein
11/7/11
[1] Georgia Pardons Board Denies Clemency for Death Row Inmate, NY Times 9/20/11: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/us/troy-davis-is-denied-clemency-in-georgia.html
[2] Mills Making the Pills, by Guy Taylor, St. Pete Times 10/30/11: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/essays/feds-refuse-to-limit-production-of-deadly-oxycodone/1199540