Here's Herman Cain's Hilariously Stupid Facebook Foreign Policy Map
Earlier today, we asked if anyone had seen Herman Cain drinking "like a fish" on the campaign trail. But it looks like we found evidence all on our own! Because he was obviously drunk when he made this map for his website explaining his foreign policy positions.
Yes, this, flagged by Enik Rising, is Herman Cain's actual foreign policy map; the one that was cribbed from Facebook intern Paul Butler's visualization of Facebook friendships. Cain acknowledges the source; he (or the poor campaign worker dictating his drunken ramblings) adds at the bottom that it "illustrates how entrepreneurship and freedom can light up the world with friendship," which is, yes, on a rhetorical level completely empty, but at least manages to convey that Herman Cain is a moron and is therefore not technically "meaningless."
What else does this map convey to us? Canada, we are told is a "Friend and Ally," while Mexico is a "Friend and Partner." (Is Mexico not an Ally and Canada not a Partner?) Brazil, on the other hand, is merely a "Friend," far removed from "Our Special Relationship," with the U.K., which is apparently our gay boyfriend. Russia is a "Rival" but China is a "Competitor" (in what? The Olympics?); both Egypt and Pakistan represent, like some dorm-room tarot card reading, "Danger and Opportunity." Finally, there are the "Adversary Regimes": Venezuela, Iran and North Korea. We can be comforted only by the fact that Cain and his campaign had enough self-awareness not to just write "Bad Guy."
The explanation of the map on the site does not help clear up what, exactly, we are being told. He's deeply concerned with our ties to the U.K. (which is, along with Germany and Russia, contained in the category "The Americas"): "In noticeable decline under President Obama, the Cain Administration will turn the relationship around so that our two nations start working as a team once again." (We believe he means that Our Special Relationship, and not the hypothetical Cain Administration, is the subject of noticeable decline under President Obama.) Cain worries that Iran will back Venezuelan "adventurism in our hemisphere" and complains that "with help from President Obama," our "friend" Hosni Mubarak was "shoved out by Arab Spring protests," which he finds troubling. Libya is given the descriptor "Clarity Needed." ("As president, Mr. Cain will work to bring clarity to the Libyan situation.")
Yes: this is the foreign policy of the Herman Cain administration, a man who needed some half-dozen accusations of sexual harassment to be knocked from his position as a Republican front-runner. Clarity Needed.
