GOP Presidential Candidate Herman Cain Praised for ‘Assertive Ignorance’
Foreign Policy blogger Daniel Drezner today inaugurated an exciting new prize – the Donald Trump Award for Assertive Ignorance in World Politics, or: the Trumpie. To be in with a chance, a public figures must satisfy two criteria: “First, the nominee must display a breathtaking ignorance of some bailiwick of American foreign policy or world politics. Second, the nominee must do this while simultaneously demonstrating supreme confidence in the factual and/or analytical rightness of their statement.”
The first nod goes to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, for his comments on Israel and Palestine on Fox News Sunday. (See below.) Cain told Chris Wallace in no uncertain terms that Israel should offer the Palestinians “nothing” in return for peace (“supreme confidence” etc.) while at the same time allowing as how they should “negotiate” a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees. (This would be the “breathtaking ignorance” part; Israel is very, very, very opposed to letting Palestinians return to land they were forced to leave in 1948 or 1967 – so much so that plenty of observers think the Palestinians would be prepared to let the whole thing slide for the right deal. So Cain is suggesting Israel give up both nothing and a whole hell of a lot. In other words, this presidential hopeful hasn’t spent 10 seconds thinking about this in his whole life. Drezner notes that the gaffe “was significant enough for the Cain campaign to issue a ‘clarification of these remarks,’ which is always a good indicator that a Trumpie nomination has been scored.” Congrats to Cain for the nomination.