Morning Joe 10/18/2011 -- Petty lies

On Morning Joe today, Scarbourough, Mika and Halperin started out ridiculing Herman Cain again, and this time the ridicule included petty lies designed to mislead. They said Cain criticized his own 9-9-9 plan a year ago when he wrote in an op-ed that adding a federal sales tax on top of the other federal taxes is crazy. Cain's plan calls for the elimination of other federal taxes, so Cain did not criticize his own plan a year ago. Mika caught this and started to clarify when Scarborough interrupted her and continued to make fun of Cain and call him a joke. Sometimes you can get by with spinning a person's position if there is enough doubt about where the person stands, but in this instance, Scarborough's petty lying about Cain's position is so obvious it makes Scarborough look stupid, petty and dishonest.

If Scarborough has a problem with Cain's positions, then he ought to simply show how they are flawed, but Scarborough engages in ad hominem attacks. Why? What has Cain done to deserve such ridicule and petty smearing? He's a successful man who has overcome many obstacles. I don't understand the pettiness coming from Scarborough and others in the media. Cain must be a threat to their worldview.

Scarborough lately has had on show the same old tired guests, Harold Ford, Richard Haas, Mark Halperin, so they mainly laugh at Scarborough's jokes as he holds court. I think Scarborough feels his faction of the Republican Party is slipping into obscurity -- the Centrists -- so he's doing his clown act to get attention. Scarborough desperately wants to be relevant. It must be tough for Scarborough to realize the little political world in which he flutters about is not as important as he thought. Herman Cain is in the lead? Oh my, Scarborough is offended! We could have had Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, even Scarborough himself, but we get Herman Cain? A gospel singing pizza flipper with a simplistic tax plan? It's too much to bear -- why, Cain is not mainstream! What will the world think?

The unintentional humor on Morning Joe makes it worth watching. But when you really look at what Scarborough and others like him are doing, it's not funny. The status quo, professional politicians got us into this mess -- high unemployment, foreign entanglements, stagnant economy, crushing debt, unfunded liabilities, business strangling regulations, government controlled healthcare, and the specter of higher and higher taxes -- we are in national decline. Cain is not the answer, but neither is yearning for a mainstream Republican moderate. Rather than spitting on Cain, the political class should assess their own ignorance, and how the status quo political realm has destroyed the American economy.

We need radical change, and at least Cain is putting forward ideas regarding some of our fundamental problems like the US tax code. Scarborough is a loud fool, the worst kind.