Bravado, Mr. Cain!

We all have egos. But few of us have "achieved" the level of egoism which allows us to utter such things as left the lips of Herman Cain yesterday.

Major Frank Burns comes to mind, whose egoism marched hand-in-hand with a paranoia that lead him to believe in his own perfectionism. But he was just a figment, a character on M*A*S*H.

Mr. Cain is a character who has also decided to live on in reruns. Mr. Cain does not want to be our president, but he just won't stand for the possibility of robbing us of his terrific ideas and great wisdom. Gee, thanks. He's launched a website (look it up if you're interested, I'll spare you it here) so that his brilliance, his love for this country and all of us, will not be lost forever to the annals of the also-ran.

Call it a non-victory lap or a not-gonna-say-farewell tour, but Mr. Cain's mission is clear:

*To sell more books
*To parlay his fame into a Fox gig
*To meet the ladies (groupies)
*To stroke his...we'll go with ego

Here are two things Mr. Cain actually said at his Redneck Revival Rally yesterday in Atlanta:

*"I haven't lost faith in America."
*"This hurts the American people."

Now, as the prophet Henry Spencer explained to his son, Shawn: "In every lie there's a kernel of truth." So with that in mind, let's look again at Mr. Cain's musings.

*"I haven't lost faith in America." The context here was that even though he had been hijacked by "false and unproved" accusations, Mr. Cain could still enforce his ideology (whatever it may be) onto the nation (or at least the Teapotty version of it). "You still deserve me. I'll forgive you. You are worthy of me yet," are other words for his impression of the situation. Seriously. I've heard of blaming the victim, but lauding the perpetrator??? Beyond belief and ego! I think Mr. P. T. Barnum gets the credit for digging out the kernel here: "There's a sucker born every minute."

*"This hurts the American people." Again, Mr. Cain maintains that because he was "falsely and wrongly" accused that the VOTING public is wounded on his behalf. How dare those women try to steal Herman's glory away from our eyes! Herman's saying: "You need me. I cannot let you go on without me. The evil-doers cannot win!" This kernel-finding award goes to everyone who has ever uttered the phrase, "Look! Elvis!" Shiny object: good. What Herman Cain's really been up to: not so good. His version is diversion.

Can you imagine standing before a crowd and waving your own banner to the point of claiming martyrdom? The guy doinks a woman for 13 years, never tells his wife, and calls the woman a liar. Worse yet, he harasses women, denies it, and calls them liars. This is our paragon of virtue. This is the poor soul who parades out christians and soldiers to vouch for him. This guy who seemingly knows very little (and is proud of the fact) about our world KNOWS that we need to be enlightened by the likes of him.

One marvels at the demons in his head who must remind him on a daily basis that he is a misunderstood genius. Beyond that, why would he think that anyone other than himself and the demons would care to be a part of the conversation?

Because a small (here's hoping) portion of the electorate continue to engage with such characters. What does that say about them? They're looking for something or someone to fix them perhaps. Ironically these same folks want everyone to grab onto their own bootstraps and let their own hovels burn down when the fire department runs out of funding. They wait for their rightwing savior all the while screaming innanities at those who bother to expect consideration from their government. Democracy is messy, what with the people and all...

If you buy a ticket, the carnies will come. And carnies--while being amongst the scariest creatures on earth--need to have big egos. They are "larger than life" with a bent toward the showmanship of it all. Simply stated: Politicians and carnival folk are fellow travelers. They go from town to town, throw up their rag-tag ideas, amuse the crowd, and leave a trail of sawdust and candy wrappers behind. They count on some in the crowd to gather the sawdust for mementos and scan the wrappers for hidden meanings.

There is nothing cryptic here. Herman Cain is putting on a show of his sawdust-weight understanding of the world wrapped in the candy of his own ego. It's a confection like no other. With a really dry center.

It reminds me of fig NEWTons.