Former pizza mogul Herman Cain says his lack of foreign policy knowledge is an asset in his candidacy for US president, because it allows his experience as a corporate executive to highlight how he will pull the country out of the economic doldrums.
In an apparent reference to Cain’s embarrassing lack of knowledge over key issues in the Middle East peace process, CBN’s David Brody asked him at last weekend’s Values Voter Summit if he was ready for the “gotcha” questions, now that the Republican contender had risen to top-tier status in the latest polls.
“I’m ready for the ‘gotcha’ questions, an’dey already startin’ to come,” Cain replied.
Then mocking the name of a Central Asian nation vital as a ground supply route in America’s war in Afghanistan, Cain said, “An’ when they ask me who is the president of U-beki-beki, beki-beki, stan-stan, I’m gonna say, ‘you know, I don’t know. Do you know?”
“And then I’m gonna say, ‘how’s that gonna create one job?,’” said Cain, who has no national security experience but several decades’ worth as a corporate executive.
“When I get ready to go visit that country, I’ll know who it is,” he continued. “But until then I want to focus on the big issues that we need to solve.”
In addition to not knowing what the Palestinian Right of Return is, Cain has also been forced to backtrack from saying he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet simply because they are Muslim. He has also confused the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution while campaigning, and said he would not pass lengthy legislation because he does not like to read.
When asked by FOX News’ Sean Hannity about his statement on foreign policy, Cain went on a rant about how Black liberals were attacking him because he is an African-American Republican.
“They don’t want me to wake people up and get them to read the fine print, and think for themselves,” Cain ironically declared.
Cain’s foreign policy ignorance was again on display following the GOP debate Tuesday night. When asked about how he’d handle the alleged Iran-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Cain responded that he would’ve have already built a missile defense system which he claimed would have deterred Iran from carrying out the assassination plot.
“I would have done something earlier such that it probably would have encouraged them not to do something like this and that is one of great capabilities we have is our ballistic missile defense systems that could be upgraded, and we could place these Aegis ballistic missile defense systems in international water in that part of the world,” Cain said during a post-debate appearance on Fox News. Cain did not specify how a missile defense system would have prevented Iran from trying to hire Mexican drug cartels to carry out an assassination.
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I don’t think anybody is going to ask him who the president of Uzbekistan is, although he had better know the kinds of much less obscure facts that Sarah Palin didn’t know, like the signatories to NAFTA.