Tchotchkes: Why the Herman-ator Terminated His Campaign (To Music)

Lil White Lies: Notorious T.E.D. (and Eleanor!)

Earlier this year (April), my conservative counterpart evaluated a PolitiFact (PF) Georgia Pants on Fire ruling on a since repeated statement by Herman Cain concerning Planned Parenthood: that “"When Margaret Sanger - check my history - started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”  What was Bryan White’s explanation for Cain not deserving his pants set on fire? While he agrees that there’s “no good evidence black babies were being killed” he claims that (1) PF did not adequately examine the context of the statement, as is part of its standards, and (2) PF mistakenly interpreted (and defended) the statement as Cain viewing Margaret Sanger as racist and that this personal belief of Sanger’s was “largely irrelevant to the implicit argument that Planned Parenthood has a history of targeting blacks.” Or so he says.

Below is a youtube video of Cain’s recorded statement back in March.



Here’s most of the “context” of Cain's original comments:

His comments about Planned Parenthood come amid a debate in Congress over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Attached to the spending bill recently passed by the House is an amendment from Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana that denies the group funds.

Speaking to reporters and bloggers at the Heritage Foundation, Cain echoed a position expressed by many other Republicans.

“I support de-funding Planned Parenthood,” Cain said. “Tactically how they [Congress] does it…I can’t tell you.”

Cain then explained the reason behind his stance.

“You probably don’t hear a lot of people talking about this,” Cain said. “When Margaret Sanger – check my history – started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”

“It's planned genocide,” Cain claimed.

“It’s carrying out its original mission,” he continued. “I’ve talked to young girls who go in there, and they [Planned Parenthood] don’t talk about how you plan parenthood. They don’t talk about adoption as an option. They don’t say, ‘Well, bring your parents in so we can sit down and talk with you, and counsel with you before you make this decision.’”

Six months fast forward, and with Cain now the leading presidential candidate according to polls, he was asked to re-confirm this statement by Bob Schieffer on “Face The Nation.” He not only re-confirmed, but embellished further:

If people go back and look at the history and look at Margaret Sanger's own words, that's exactly where that came from. Look up the history. So if you go back and look up the history -- secondly, look at where most of them were built; 75 percent of those facilities were built in the black community -- and Margaret Sanger’s own words, she didn’t use the word "genocide," but she did talk about preventing the increasing number of poor blacks in this country by preventing black babies from being born.

There’s plenty of context there with which to infer what Cain was talking about, which were his reasons why Planned Parenthood should be defunded by congress. Faulting PolitiFact with failing to find the original context was misleading, nor necessary . But Bryan’s point is a larger one in respect to what seems to be a common thread throughout this blog post: that PolitiFact has “whitewashed” Planned Parenthood’s “unseemly” origins and that Cain “claimed nothing about Sanger other than calling her the founder of Planned Parenthood.”

If Cain called her nothing other than the founder of Planned Parenthood, then why did his remarks elicit a formal response not just from Planned Parenthood, but from Alexander Sanger, the grandson of Margaret, saying this was a “slur”?

Politi-Score: Citizen Cain

Before we know the final outcome of the issues Herman Cain has been experiencing lately, and he is still a leading candidate, this may now be a good time to take a look at his Politi-Score.

Maybe there isn't very much to what
Herman Cain says he can deliver.

When candidate Bill Clinton experienced something somewhat similar back in 1992, he overcame it and went on to become president for two terms; unless things get far worse, Herman Cain can do the same. Although listening to some of the (Republican) pundits, it doesn’t look like he’ll be their nominee. While I hear people like Ann Coulter say that Democrats fear a Conservative Black more than anything, I haven’t seen any indication. If he was nominated, I think it would be great to see him run against Obama—it would really mark the progress of our country.

But to get back to Cain’s Politi-Score: It’s at the bottom of the barrel. It’s the lowest of all the current Republican candidates…even lower than perennial flame thrower Michele Bachmann. At the time I computed the Truth Index for the first 9 months of 2011, he was next to the bottom for all those with 10 PF rulings or more, only worsted by sometimes candidate Donald Trump, who got his pants set on fire with birther remarks until Obama released his long-form certificate earlier this year.

While some argue that FactCheck.Org has higher standards and perhaps less biased reporting than PolitiFact (PF), it recently published quite a derogatory article in which it basically fact-checked the course of Cain’s statements in regard to the sexual harassment accusations he has been facing. Those have not been included in my Politi-Score computations, of course. The article was entitled “Cain’s Pattern of Evasion and Misdirection -- The GOP candidate contradicts himself on abortion, 9-9-9 and now on allegations of sexual harassment.” Here are some choice excerpts:

Politico reported that two women accused him of inappropriate behavior while he served as head of the National Restaurant Association and that both women received financial payments from the trade group. Cain has denied the allegations. At first, Cain also denied that either woman received a settlement. But later the same day, he acknowledged that in at least one case “there was some sort of settlement or termination” worth “maybe three months’ salary.” The next day Cain said it was “in the vicinity of three to six months.” The New York Times reports it was a year’s salary….

In addition to this pattern of evasion and misdirection, Cain also has a proven ability to spread outrageously false information — such as accusing Planned Parenthood of “genocide” and concentrating abortion clinics in black neighborhoods…

Herman Cain… revels in being an unconventional candidate. His campaign is perhaps best exemplified by a viral Web ad of his cigarette-smoking chief of staff declaring that “America has never seen another candidate like Herman Cain,” and then taking a long drag on a cigarette and blowing smoke….

But as he rises in the polls, Cain has come under attack from rivals and has found himself being held to the same standards as conventional top-tier candidates. He’s finding out that even unconventional candidates cannot blow smoke and get away with it.

Spread outrageously false information….Blow smoke and get away with it? I think if I heard that coming from PF’s Lou Jacobson, my conservative counterpart would be having a cow with what he would call “editorializing versus fact-checking.”

Cain had 34 statements reviewed: 22 by PolitiFact, 6 by the Washington Post Fact Checker and 6 by FactCheck.Org. Here’s how he looked overall and with each checker using the PF Truth Index app format: