Can we be done with this guy yet? (Steve Marcus/Reuters)



Can we be done with this guy yet? (Steve Marcus/Reuters)

Cain speaks for nearly a half an hour and despite a couple fleeting "999" mentions, keeps his speech to topics of faith and his recent battle with cancer. He begins with a story about how he knew he would survive when he discovered that his physician was named "Dr. Lord," that the hospital attendant's name was "Grace" and that the incision made on his chest during the surgery would be in the shape of a "J." [...] [Cain] did have a slight worry at one point during the chemotherapy process when he discovered that one of the surgeon's name was "Dr. Abdallah." "I said to his physician assistant, I said, 'That sounds foreign--not that I had anything against foreign doctors--but it sounded too foreign," Cain tells the audience. "She said, 'He's from Lebanon.' Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, 'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon.'" "Hallelujah!" Cain says. "Thank God!" The crowd laughs uneasily.

Herman Cain continues to promote himself as the most reliable bigot in the GOP race. And I do mean bigot. He's very, very clear about it

See, he doesn't have anything against foreign doctors, but that name just sounded too foreign. And holy crap! It turns out he's from Lebanon! "Maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine!" But it all turned out all right, because the doctor was a Christian, not a filthy Muslim.

You could replace this whole exchange with some other religion or ethnicity and his little story would reliably clear the room, even among Republicans. Can you imagine if he'd been suspicious the doctor was Jewish, and relayed this story? What if Newt Gingrich was telling a story about having a doctor that appeared to be a black man, and how he started to panic about it until his assistant said not to worry, he was just really tan?

Cain apparently has told this story more than once, which leads to the obvious question: why? What on earth makes him think this story makes him look good?

This is a man who is confident in his bigotry: he's pretty sure his audience, conservative Republicans all, feel the same way. That he keeps telling the story even though his Republican audiences respond with as much discomfort as laughter would get a more intelligent bigot to shut up already; Cain, however, has never been accused of being all that bright.