Barrier to Entry

Herman Cain has decided to suspend his presidential campaign. It's true! Here's a link for people who don't believe the New York Times.

It would be great if he had been forced to pull out because of obvious lack of knowlege on a variety of subjects, especially foreign policy. However, Cain cited the many scandals involving his love life (all of them both false AND untrue, he says) as his reason for quitting. This bugs me, as I've said before - a guy's personal life is messy and shouldn't be a disqualification for higher office, because it doesn't have to interfere with his ability to do his job. In fact, it pretty clearly didn't interfere with Cain's, because he was a very successful businessman in spite of these things.

But now I'm beginning to think I like this state of play in American politics, because big business is one of the only fields that is more corrupt. People can get pretty arrogant when they're CEOs. Being able to buy off any accusers, or negotiate a contract where you get a multi-million dollar bonus even if your company's profits go into the toilet, can make you think you're invincible. You become convinced that nothing you do is wrong, that maybe you're not above good and evil but at least you won't pay any penalties. We don't need people like that running the country.

Humility is a good quality. It checks radicalism.

So maybe the next election cycle we'll have less billionaires buying a spot on the lawmaker express. Who needs that kind of trouble? Less billionaires making laws, less resistance to letting the Bush Tax cuts expire, less public debt for future generations.