REUTERS Cain's Cabinet dream: DOD

Herman Cain says if he could be a Cabinet secretary, he would want to be head of the Department of Defense.

In an interview with Barbara Walters, who chose Cain as one of the “10 Most Fascinating People” of the year, the former presidential hopeful was asked what Cabinet position he would like.


“We are speaking totally, totally hypothetical, right?” a smiling Cain said. “Department of Defense.”

A visibly surprised Walters exclaimed, “What?”

“Yes.”

“Not Treasury? I mean, you’re the 9-9-9 man. Why the Department of Defense?” Walters asked.

“Because if I could influence rebuilding our military as it should be, that would be a task I would consider undertaking.”

Walters proceeded to remind Cain, who served in the Department of the Navy during the Vietnam War, that as defense secretary, “it would be important to be familiar with the various countries around the world.

“And you have had some difficulty with that, Mr. Cain,” she added.

“Yes, but I have been doing my homework ever since that difficulty,” Cain said, still smiling.

Cain suspended his presidential campaign earlier this month after a number of sexual harassment allegations against him surfaced. During his stint as a 2012 hopeful, his lack of foreign policy credentials frequently came to public attention.

In a meeting with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Cain struggled to answer the question of whether he agreed or disagreed with President Barack Obama’s handling of Libya. Following the Libya flop, Cain said, “Who knows every detail of every country on the planet? Nobody!”

During his interview with Walters, Cain admitted he was not hopeful that any of his former competitors in the GOP presidential race would tap him as their running mate.

“I honestly don’t think that they would, because then the spin of the spin would start all over again,” he said.

Also on Walters’s “Most Fascinating People” list this year: Katy Perry, Donald Trump , the Kardashians and Simon Cowell.

This article tagged under: Politics

Herman Cain