UPDATED: Out Of Nowhere

Written in 1931

Music by Johnny Green

Lyrics by Edward Heyman

Performed by vocalist Lena Horne, Accompanied on the piano by Teddy Wilson

NOTE: Lena Horne was only 24 years old when she made this recording in 1941; Wilson was 29. I remember watching Lena Horne on The Ed Sullivan Show and on The Dean Martin Show, two of the best comedy-musical-variety-type shows that were not uncommon on television during the 50's and early 60's. Such programming, unfortunately, will never be again seen on today's network television. The music on these shows was unbelievable and most was performed live by artists like Frank Sinatra, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald and, of course, Dean himself.

[Below are several clips from The Dean Martin Show featuring, variously, Ms. Lena, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Dean from The Dean Martin Show:]

There's no Ms. Lena in the next one. I snuck it in just because it's a classic! It has to be from the mid-50's or so.

And here, finally, is Teddy Wilson and Ms. Horne and her haunting rendition of "Out of Nowhere." The pictures of Ms. Horne on the video are worth a second look. She was a stunning beauty on screen and was always a classy lady. She died on May 9th of last year. I can only imagine seeing or hearing her in person. One of God's chosen creatures.

 

Here's another version of the song recorded by Ruth Etting in 1931, when the vocal flourish at the end of the song was stylish. Notice too how Ms. Etting includes a mini-"Christina Aguilera" run on a few notes. (Don't quite care for that.) Ms. Etting begins with the verse which Ms. Horne omitted from her version. The lyrics of the verse may be difficult to make out. Here they are:

When I least expected,

Kindly fate directed

You to make each dream of mine come true.

If it’s clear or raining,

There is no explaining.
Things just happen and so did you.

UPDATE: Believe it or not, my first exposure to the song "Out of Nowhere" was as a young child watching, of all things, a Popeye cartoon on black and white television. I'm not talking the modern Popeye, mind you, the santitized Popeye. I'm talking Max Fleischer's original, salty, mumbling, banned-during-the-war Popeye, the all-American uncensored Popeye.

Through the magic of YouTube we're able to re-live the past to an extent. Below is the original Popeye cartoon that introduced me to the song. The cartoon is titled "Quiet! pleeze" and was made in 1941. It seems Popeye's "Pappy" is sick (hung over) and needs rest and quiet. He yells to his obliging son: "...And keep it quiet!" The scene where Popeye quiets a radio performer singing "Out of Nowhere" begins at the 3:59 mark.

Spoiler Alert! Watch the cartoon to the very end. The punch line is that Popeye's poor, sick ole' Pappy, after all of his son's hard "woik" keeping things quiet, is seen singing and dancing up a storm at a wild, noisy party.

Strange, the song has stuck in my mind all these years. I must have liked it even then.

Mission Impossible: Cutting "Excess Capacity" From the US Postal Service

Yesterday, according to CBS news, the U.S. Postal Service "announced major budget and service cuts. As a result of the $3 billion in cuts, first-class mail that used to take just one day to deliver will now take two to three days," CBS reported. "Stamps will also rise in cost by 1 cent to 45 cents, starting next month."

Earlier, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe attempted to explain the higher postage price and severe service cutbacks by saying that the Postal Service was reducing "excess capacity."

This comment got me thinking. How is it possible for Gen. Donahoe to even recognize what he says is "excess capacity" in the Postal Service, much less reduce it? After all, the Postal Service is a government monopoly. No company operating in the free market is allowed by the federal government, under penalty of the law, to do what the Postal Service does. Without competition, i.e., the discipline of the marketplace, how can Gen. Donahoe possibly determine that his organization does too much of what it does?

The short answer is: He can't. For all Gen. Donahoe knows, the whole of what the Postal Service does is "excess capacity."

This answer, of course, assumes that Gen. Donahoe is talking about "excess capacity" considered from the point of view of consumers in the marketplace.

Because of its legal status, the US Postal Service exists in a sort of bubble insulated from and independent of consumers in the marketplace.

Depending on who you believe and how much time you spend looking for it, the budget of the Postal Service was about $69-billion in 2006. This information is from someone with the nickname of "Crystal" who provided it on the omnicient website WikiAnswers. Those untrusting souls who demand a more authoritative number can read through this lengthy article published by Bloomberg Businessweek: "The U.S. Postal Service Nears Collapse." Referring to the Postal Service and its budget, the article states: "Last year its revenues were $67 billion, and its expenses were even greater." Furthermore, the USPS is $15-billion in debt.

Terrific! Given the article's title, the fact that it says the Postal Service has "stayed afloat by borrowing $12 billion from the U.S. Treasury," that it will "reach its statutory debt limit" this year, and that it "would default on $5.5 billion of health-care costs set aside for its future retirees scheduled for payment on Sept. 30 unless the government comes to the rescue, I think we can safely assume this federal Brontosaurus is in deep doo-doo. This assessment does not even consider the amount of money the agency is in hock to the federal government for employee pensions ($75-billion or so) and the drastic, continuing decline in the volume of First Class Mail, which is the agency's bread and butter.

The point is that the US Postal Service is an expensive and outdated dinosaur that hangs like a millstone about the neck of the American public. For example (more quotes from the story), since "2007 the USPS has been unable to cover its annual budget, 80 percent of which goes to salaries and benefits." Moreover, the USPS operates "the world's largest network of post offices" and "80 percent of them lose money."

In short, while the rest of the world (read the free market) was computerizing, streamlining and modernizing their organizations, the USPS was maintaining and adding to their brick and mortar effigies to the past. While Fed Ex, UPS and all the other free market package and priority letter delivery companies were mobilizing their services by going to the customer for parcel pickup and delivery, the Postal Service was still demanding that its captive audience journey to its local post office or mail box, where a large army ("571,566 full-time workers") delivers daily "an average of 563 million pieces of mail—40 percent of the entire world's volume."

The worst part is that this large army of employees is represented by an aggressive and militant union, the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, which has negotiated lavish wages, benefits and no-layoff contracts over the years with our pandering public representatives in Congress. The bottomline is that change of any kind in the USPS is nearly impossible. Hence, the USPS is more firmly entrenched in the taxpayers pocket than the US Marine Corps.

But enough boring and depressing statistics. Let's get back to the economics of the matter and Gen. Donahoe's futile attempt to recognize the Postal Service's "excess capacity."

Gen. Donahoe may not admit it but he knows full well that the Postal Service does not serve the American consumer. The Postal Service serves Congress, as authorized in the Constitution. Congress sets the parameters of postal service. It determines that a first class letter must be delivered to every nook and cranny in the United States for the price of a single, first class stamp. When the Postal Service has the nation's mailmen trudging from house to house on foot, or driving from street to street in jeeps, or sailing across lakes in boats, or across Alaska in snowmobiles and pontoon planes attempting to deliver a single letter for 44 cents, it is merely carrying out the mission assigned to it by Congress in the best and most politically correct way it knows how. The result is the bleak army of employees and the sea of red ink described above.

So the question remains: In light of this mandated Congressional mission, and in light of the status of the USPS as a protected, federal monopoly, how does Gen. Donahoe determine his organization's "excess capacity?"

The answer is that Gen. Donahoe considers the capacity of the USPS, not from the point of view of the consumer, but from the point of view of his Congressional mandate and his Congressional budget. "Excess capacity" to Gen. Donahoe means plain and simply the difference between what USPS spends per year and what USPS takes in each year in revenue. That's it! No philosophizing. No gut checks. No innovating. No out-of-the-box theorizing. No changing.

The only means Gen. Donahoe must consider when he is faced with reducing "excess capacity" are: first, raising the price of postage; second, abandoning buildings and equipment, thereby consolidating his workforce (which results in more roundabout service); and third, petitioning Congress for taxpayer subsidies. In Gen. Donahoe's mind, no other options exist. His labor costs are fixed. He can't converst labor costs into capital equipment. His pension costs are fixed. But most of all, his and his organization's very existence is fixed and certain!

An entrepreneur in the free market who is faced with the problem of "excess capacity" must think on a far broader and the most fundamental scale. The entrepreneur in the free market serves the consumer and no one else. "Excess capacity" in a free market company is one of many possible symptoms of a plague which exists only in the free market: loss.

Consumers in a free market express their sovereignty by means of voluntarily buying goods and services from sellers who best satisfy their demands. The dollars spent by these consumers accumulate in the coffers of sellers. If a seller finds that he has produced too much and sold too little, he may say he is experiencing "excess capacity" and must reduce it, but what he really means is that he is not making a profit. He is suffering a loss. He knows, in fact, that continued losses, will result inexorably and inevitably in the end of his business and his career as an entrepreneur.

Why does the entrepreneur feel the life and death pressure of profit and loss, but Gen. Donahoe does not?

Because the entrepreneur does not operate in a bubble like the Postal Service does. The entrepreneur is not isolated from the effects of the production of other vendors and suppliers who supply the same product and service and who freely compete in the free market. These competing business offer buyers an endless choice of quanity, quality, service and price. If the entrepreneur can't measure up to his competition, or surpass his competition, he suffers a loss. He fails.

If the USPS was a private company operating in the free market, and Gen. Donahoe was its entrepreneur, he would be faced with making do-or-die decisions on a grand scale. He would be forced to reduce the size of his work force, or reduce wages and benefits, or drastically cut costs to increase efficiency by making fundamental changes in job descriptions and capital equipment, and improvements in operational systems. He would be forced to re-evaluate the very mission of his business and the very assumptions which guide the way he has been doing business and accomplishing his mission.

In short, if the USPS operated in the free market, Gen. Donahoe would have to weather the competitive storm of Fed Ex, Western Union, Google and countless local companies delivering first class mail. He would have to make a profit in the face of this competition or he and his USPS would be forced by the market to go away. There would be no Congress of last resort to bail him out.

Critics will object that making such drastic adjustments would cause untold hardship among USPS management and staff. This is true. Free market USPS employees who lose their jobs would have to find new, productive ones at a free market company. Some enterprising ex-USPS employees might even start their own mail delivery companies and make millions. Who knows? USPS employees who retain their jobs would have to work harder and more efficiently. But without such changes the American consumer and taxpayer are doomed to live with the millstone of the USPS draped around their neck from now until forever.

The best part of the free market is that, when losing businesses fold and profit-making business thrive, the consumer in us is satisfied. And satisfaction of our consumer wants and needs is the best we can hope to expect from an exchange society.

Did You Ever See A Dream Walking? [SCANDAL ALERT!]

Written in 1933

Music by Harry Revel

Lyrics by Mack Gordon

Performed by The Eddy Duchin Orchestra, 1933

Vocal by Lew Sherwood [a "beautiful, soft-voiced singer" popular in his day]

NOTES [Beware of Scandal Below!]: The photos included in the YouTube music video below are exquisite. Some show Eddy Duchin along with his orchestra. Some are a bit more titillating. Duchin and his orchestra were a society favorite, playing regularly at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

His society following made him a favorite of the leading composers of the day, and such writers as George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, and Cole Porter called upon him to introduce new songs. It was not just his music which the social set accepted, they loved Duchin as well. Among the socially prominent people he met at the Waldorf was Marjorie Oelrichs whom he married in 1933. Four years later she died giving birth to their son Peter. [From "The Big Band Almanac" by Leo Walker]

Bucking a trend -- the big bands began to fade away in the 50's and were all but dead in the early 60's -- Eddy's son Peter Duchin formed an orchestra modeled after his father's in 1962. To my knowledge, Peter Duchin and his orchestra are still doing high society gigs, performing at celebrity weddings, birthdays and inaugural balls.

You can taste the flavor of celebrity and society in the photos in the video. They include shots of golden age movie stars I can't recognize from classic movies I can't name. Note the risque pinup shots taken, I assume, in the 20's and 30's. Considering today's standards and today's brand of risque, the photos seem mild by comparison. Looking at these old photos, it's interesting to consider that sex and scandal were always a huge part of American culture. However, in the Victorian times of the past sex and immorality were not worn on the sleeve, but were properly repressed and kept private. Scandal was something whispered about. It was not flaunted as it is today by the ubiquitous, in-your-face media.

As an example, I italicized the word "Bucking" two paragraphs above as an intended pun for those in the know. In 1938 Eddy Duchin precipitated a "minor" national and world scandal:

Duchin's 1938 release of the Louis Armstrong song "Ol' Man Mose" (Brunswick Records 8155) with vocal by Patricia Norman caused a minor scandal at the time with the lyric "bucket" being heard as "fuck it." Some listeners conclude that there is no vulgarism uttered, while others are convinced that Norman does say "fuck" (which would explain one of the band members laughing delightedly after Norman seems to chirp, "Awww, fuck it... fuck-fuck-fuck it!").
The "scandalous" lyrics caused the record to zoom to #2 on the Billboard charts, resulting in sales of 170,000 copies when sales of 20,000 were considered a blockbuster. The song was banned after its release in Great Britain. The notorious number can be heard on a British novelty CD, Beat the Band to the Bar.

 [Here's Eddy Duchin, his orchestra and Patricia Norman's "Ol' Man Mose"]

Here's Eddy Duchin's "Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?"

The Eddy Duchin version of the song above starts with the song's chorus, hence it does not include this beautiful verse preceding:

Something very strange and mystic happened to me.

Something realistic and as weird as can be.

Something that I feared, somehow is now endeared to me.

What a funny feeling, odd and yet so true!

Did a thing like this ever happen to you?

 Here's a version, performed by Bing Crosby, which includes the verse:

I Love You So Much It Hurts

Written in 1948

Music and Lyrics by Floyd Tillman

Performed by Ray Charles, 1962

UPDATED: Cain's No Win Situation And A Response From LD Jackson

In my post of a few days ago, I bloviated on the sexual scandal surrounding Herman Cain. In that post I criticized an article written by LD Jackson in his blog at Political Realities. Mr. Jackson has been kind enough to respond to my post. To give his response the attention due it, I reproduce it below:

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to be unfair to Herman Cain with my post. However, I do think he has handled these allegations very poorly. He has danced all around them, issuing denials on one part, and then saying it was no one's business, refusing to answer questions about them. In short, he has started acting like the politician he says he isn't.

As for him providing proof if he isn't guilty, I didn't expect him to do that for the allegations of sexual harassment. I felt like I gave him the benefit of the doubt and only wrote once about them, to the point of how the campaign handled the accusations. (Very poorly!) With this latest allegation, I felt it was time for Cain to stop avoiding the issue and prove, once and for all, if he was guilty or not.

I didn't expect Cain to tape the visits between himself and Ginger White, but one would think he would be able to corroborate his story, in some fashion. Instead, we have more denials and then he admitted his wife didn't know about his relationship with the woman.

As to the idea that we want our politicians to be saints, let me say this. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I have real trust issues with anyone who would lie about something of this nature. If they can not be trusted to be faithful to their spouse, then how can we trust them to lead our country?

As I stated in my original post, I greatly respect Mr. Jackson. I simply have an honest disagreement with his position on this particular matter. I continue to have three major issues with this entire episode.

First and foremost, there is absolutely no hard evidence of any Cain sexual impropriety. All we have at this point is unsubstantiated allegations. Speculation, based on allegations, is little more than gossip or rumor.

Second, a man has two options when accused of sexual impropriety, assuming such allegations are completely false. He can issue a flat denial, which Cain has done, or he can present hard evidence which bears on the particulars of the allegations, such as provide hotel receipts, phone logs, testimony of friends, etc. Either way he is trapped in a no win situation.

Cain's flat denial is as plausible factually as the women's allegations, yet people tend to impugn his denial because it doesn't jibe with their preconceived notions of "normal" behavior, or "what they would do" in a similar situation.

On the other hand, if Cain had attempted to prove his innocence, critics would have attacked his "evidence" as circumstantial, contrived or suspect.

Moreover, short of an honest confession, a man accused of sexual impropriety, assuming the allegations are true, has but the same two options available to him if he wants to lie about the impropriety: he can issue a flat denial, or he can present circumstantial evidence which attempts to refute the allegations.

The end result is clear. An innocent man accused of improper actions behind closed doors is in a no win situation because he is assumed to be guilty in the court of public opinion.

Third, speaking of the court of public opinion, the judge and prosecutor in this court is the media. A sexual scandal depends entirely on the media -- internet blogs included -- for traction. Political operatives know this well. If the media happens to be sympathetic to their political cause, these operatives can count on their side of the story -- the allegations -- receiving the vast majority of publicity. The operatives know that publicity is all that is required to stoke a scandal. As soon as the story is out there, tongues will begin to wag and armchair jurists, steeped in personal experience and dime-store novels, will eagerly form their own verdict.

The characters involved in Obama's political campaign are proven experts at stoking the fires of scandal. They are nefarious, unprincipled and believe that the ends justify any means. They understand well that most conservatives and Republicans are as principled as LD Jackson ("I have real trust issues with anyone who would lie about something of this nature. If they can not be trusted to be faithful to their spouse, then how can we trust them to lead our country?") I believe that when conservatives and Republicans prematurely speculate on a scandal, based on their principles, they play into the hands of the scandal mongers.

Herman Cain is toast, guilty or not. The scandal mongers have won this preliminary bout with a second round, below-the-belt knockout. I firmly believe they are not finished. I firmly believe we will see more of the same in the main event.

Of course, honest men may disagree about this. Thanks to LD Jackson for expressing his honest opinion.

UPDATE: As of this morning, Cain is officially toast (H/T Drudge Report). He has announced he is suspending his campaign. Score one for the bad guys. It will be interesting to see if the media, not to mention Politico, continues to probe Cain's sex life in an attempt to get to the bottom of this earth-shaking story. 

Something tells me we'll never hear or read another word. So everybody out there who jumped to conclusions about Herman Cain (pending disclosure of the full "truth") are apt to be suspended in mid-air from now till the end of time.

Truly Inspired Writing: "Dreams From My President"

I think we've all been there, at least those of us who enjoy the written word. We read an article that hits the nail on the head in a simple, but dramatic sort of way. One such article is "Dreams From My President," posted December 1, 2011 by Randall Hoven at The American Thinker. (H/T to Maggie's Farm)

Hoven's article explores the beliefs that drive Barack Obama, beliefs that Obama himself articulated in a 2006 stump speech. The video is available at The Daily Caller. As I was reading Hoven's article, I was reminded of a quote ascribed to Robert F. Kennedy, but which was, apparently, first said or written by George Bernard Shaw:

"Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

The foundational belief that drives Barack Obama is "idealism" in its most general meaning. Idealism shapes the thinking of most leftists and liberals. It is the belief that the world needn't be as we find it, a brewing, incomprehensible cauldron of conflict, war, poverty, suffering and despair. Rather, if we set our minds to changing it, the world can become a pastoral of peace, goodwill and fellowship, wherein poverty and hunger become mere memories of a brutish past. The naive plea of Rodney King also comes to mind: "Why can't we all just get along?"

I say "naive" because all of us -- at least the sympathetic thinkers among us -- when we were young looked at the world and thought similar things. Why must the world be the hardscrabble place it is? Why can't we just make it right? We looked around us and saw others selfishly working for themselves, seemingly unmindful of the misery we saw so clearly. What's wrong with these other, older people, we'd ask ourselves. Are they blind? Or are they just uncaring and stupid?

The proscriptive implication of such thinking, as expressed in the term "we," is collectivism, which is exactly the conclusion Obama expressed in his 2006 speech in which he advocated having "a lot of confidence, a lot of faith in the possibility of collectively transforming the world." Hoven's article examines this implication and prescription in depth, not just the idealism of it, but the reality of it, i.e., the practical means that must be used by believers who actually attempt to attain such an idealistic goal in the real world.

Hoven says collectivism boils down to substituting the dreams of the collective, as envisioned by the leaders of the collective, for the dreams of the individual. He writes:

Obama loves the idea of putting the collective above the individual -- not just in the sense of "common defense," but in the very way we each carry out our lives.  A self-reliant person, pursuing her own "private, individual" dream, is the cynic without hope.  (Obama can read minds, apparently.)  To be on the side of the angels, you must be part of the collective, transforming the world.

Most of us experience a "moment of truth" as we grow older and wiser which dispels our youthful idealism as either extremely uncomfortable, impractical or both. It is amazing that such a large number of older Americans, who subscribe to the idealist vision -- Americans like Obama himself -- haven't experienced that illuminating moment of truth, or have experienced it but have discounted it for some reason.

My epiphany came in the early 70's. A group protesting the Vietnam War literally invaded and occupied a lecture hall where my professor was teaching an introductory course in accounting. The protestors demanded that the professor stop teaching accounting and conduct instead a seminar on the "imperial" war the United States was fighting in Vietnam. 

The professor wasn't intimidated. He courteously listened to the demands of the protestors and then suggested that he poll the students. "Let those in this class decide," he said, "whether they want me to continue lecturing on accounting, or whether they want you to lead a discussion of the war. If they choose accounting, I think it only right that you allow me to continue. You may conduct your discussion of the war after class. Whoever wants to participate can do so then."

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the professor. The protestors agreed to discuss the war after class. I sat in on that discussion. I listened as the protestors not only demanded an end to the war but also a new, government to replace the war mongering establishment in Washington, DC. I asked a simple, natural question of the lead protestor. "Who will lead this government?" The leader seemed a bit taken aback. Either he had never before considered my question, or he thought the answer was obvious. He said: "Well...we will, of course. All of us here." I smiled as I examined the rabid ruffians sitting before me. Then, I got up and left.

The realization had hit me that living under the thumb of this rude bunch of socialist peaceniks just might be worse than living under the thumb of a few misguided politicians who, at least, were elected by the people. I realized that these protestors didn't care about what I wanted. They cared about what they wanted, and they were ready to crack some skulls, mine included, to get it.

And so began my journey from youthful idealism to something that was more comfortable and practical...something that made sense. I didn't know where that journey would end, but I suspected the proper destination was out there somewhere. 

I started my voyage in the college library. I read Marx and Lenin, and soon realized that socialism was not the answer. Marxism struck me as pure idealism, bereft of a humane and practical means of implementation that didn't include the skull-cracking types I had experienced in the lecture hall. Eventually, I stumbled on a book called "The Constitution of Liberty," by F.A. Hayek. I was stunned by the clarity and common sense of equality under law instead of under men, and I was on to something. I proceeded to follow the trail of logic Hayek at blazed for me to Ludwig von Mises. 

The trail was not without its twists, turns and minor epiphanies. I remember the first time I picked up a book by Ayn Rand. It was titled "For The New Intellectual." As I read I couldn't help thinking that Ayn Rand had managed to put into words the very American morality I was feeling in my gut, and had felt as I was growing up. It was kind of an intellectual patriotism. Rather than focus on all that was wrong with America and the supposed rotten way of life I had grew up experiencing, Rand examined all that was right and unique about America. She put America into a rational context of human purpose, individualism, property and liberty. It all began to make sense.

So why me and not Barack Obama? Why did my journey end in freedom and individualism? Why did his end in idealism, collectivism and the tyranny of the "we?" Hoven thinks it's a kind of celestial arrogance. He writes:

If I had to guess, I would say 30% of the population is, at core, collectivist.  That is the real attractiveness of socialism, communism, Jacobinism, and other isms.  A lot of people actually do want it.  They yearn for it.  They think it is in a higher plane of consciousness.  To them, I am a cancer on the body of humanity -- a cell that won't join the body, the higher level.  My dreams are not worthy.  Their dreams are next to godliness.

Hoven may be right. I don't know. But I suspect the difference between collectivists and individualists is something far more basic, something guttural. I think it has to do somehow with fear. I really can't elaborate much more on that suspicion now. However, I will say that when the chips are down, when raw fear takes hold of us, we instinctively seek out the safety of others, we gather in crowds. We take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in our fears, that others in the crowd, others who are stronger, braver and wiser, will help us, protect us, save us.

It's not necessary we know the names of the individuals who make up the crowd, or even their own unique hopes and dreams, the very things that make them human and individual. It is necessary only that they are there en masse, sharing our fear and our desire to be safe, insulating us from harm.

Herman Cain: The Suspense Is Killing Me

The creed of American politics seems to be that it's acceptable to lie about anything except sex.

Barack Obama lies virtually everyday to millions of people about economics and public policy. His lies during the ObamaCare debate were shameless. His press secretary, Jay Carney, defends Obama, telling lies as easily as a carnival barker fronting a freak show. The same goes for Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Chair of the DNC wouldn't know the truth if it fell on her like the ass end of a circus elephant.

Do I have to chronicle the lies of Republican politicians to keep things suitably "fair and balanced?" Republicans have been lying to us for years about the worth and viability of the Social Security Trust Fund, which everyone realizes now is no different than the trust fund Bernie Madoff set up for his clients.

And what about that popular sham in Washington called "base line budgeting," the scam which allows politicians to claim they're cutting the budget when in reality they're increasing it? That folks is not spin...It's a bald faced lie.

The Washington elite literally swims in lies without so much as experiencing water up the nose. But woe to one of these guys caught or suspected of lying about their sexual trysts. Wilbur Mills drank with impunity until he was discovered splashing away with stripper Fanny Foxe in a Washington reflecting pool. Ted Kennedy was set to lie his way into the White House before his midnight swim with Mary Jo Kopechne. And Barney Frank...well, he's the exception to the rule. He denied knowing his boyfriend and roommate was running a gay brothel out of the basement of his apartment and survived the scandal. I don't know why. Maybe gay scandal gets a free pass from the media. Or maybe Democrats with good hair do.

The mainstream press wasn't even interested in the fact that John Edwards, a Democrat candidate for President, was accused of fathering a love child.

However, that was yesterday. Today the national media is up in arms about a Republican, Herman Cain, who has been accused of "sexual harassment" (whatever the hell that is) and having a 14-year affair with an unemployed Atlanta woman who was just evicted from her apartment this month.

Of course, the media refers to this "unemployed Atlanta woman who was just evicted from her apartment this month" as "an Atlanta businesswoman." By the way, Cain's latest accuser also has a history of prior sexual harassment claims, an uncontested lawsuit alleging she libeled an associate as well as "stalking...repeated e-mails/texts threatening lawsuit and defamation of character."

Oh, and the woman, Ginger White, is connected to Cain through the National Restaurant Association, which Ann Coulter documents here as an organization that works "hand-in-glove" with the Illinois Restaurant Association which is controlled by the Chicago Democrat political machine and has close ties to David Axelrod, Obama's political hit man who, demonstrably, engineered Obama's remarkable political victories in Illinois by accusing political opponents of...wait for it...sexual lies and misbehavior!

Oh, why did Ginger White come forward and the how did the media find out about her alleged trysts with Cain? According to the TV station that initially broke the "news:"

We received a phone tip from someone who knew Ginger White. That person claimed Ms. White was having an affair with Herman Cain. The tipster also called a number of other national media outlets who reached out to her. White told FOX 5, she felt trapped.

Of course this "tipster" will remain unknown and anonymous until hell freezes over.

The most remarkable part of this totally remarkable soap opera is that now some good men are calling for Cain to step down or to explain himself. Rep. Allen West, a Tea Party favorite and a man with solid moral credentials has called Cain a "distraction" and has advised "we should move on." 

Keep in mind Cain has only been "accused" of sexual dalliances. None of his accusers, some of whom remain anonymous, has come forward with a single piece of hard evidence which might give their accusations credibility! Still, we're eager to chop off the man's head.

LD Jackson, a blogger at Political Realities whom I greatly respect, posted a piece on the Cain saga in which he writes: "It’s hard for me to imagine anyone making accusations of this magnitude, without proof to back their story, but that is only speculation on my part."

What? Hard to imagine after the high tech lynching of Clarence Thomas by his sexual accuser, Anita Hill? (I believe the only hard evidence in that case was an imaginary can of Coca-Cola.) Politicians have been using sexual dirty tricks to eliminate political opponents long before David Axelrod. Wasn't it James T. Callender who accused Jefferson of fathering children with a Negro slave way back in 1801?

Reportedly, Callender's accusations were confirmed by DNA analysis in 1998. Maybe two hundred years from now the descendents of Ginger White will produce a vile of stale air from the Cain/White room at the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead and the scandal will be confirmed by some yet-to-be invented scientific technique. In the meantime, Herman Cain and his campaign for the Presidency in 2011 will be long since buried.

I support Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. If by some miracle of reverse media magic Herman Cain winds up as his party's nominee, I will vote for him because I prefer a possible conservative liar (the word "possible" modifies both "conservative" and "liar") to Barack Obama, a confirmed leftist liar and loon.

In the meantime, I think it would do us all well to think about the state of politics in this country where frontrunners who casually lie about policy issues are criticized as mere "flip-floppers," while candidates who are baselessly accused of sexual dalliances are condemned as unfit for public office and drummed out of the campaign.

LD Jackson ends his post like so many other pundits writing today: "If he [Cain] is not guilty, then he needs to show that and move his campaign forward."

My simple question is: How can Mr. Cain possibly "show that?" Unless I'm mistaken video cameras are not yet installed in every nook and cranny of the Ritz Carleton. Perhaps Mr. Cain should have recorded all his meetings with members of the opposite sex that took place behind closed doors.

Is this absurd expectation where our society, not to mention our sense of justice, is headed?

Part of us wants our government to be run by professional saints. Part of us wants our government to be run by amateur, citizen politicians. Folks, we must understand the two are mutually exclusive!

True saints don't run for office. True saints don't exist, certainly not in politics, and certainly not among ordinary citizens. We're chumps if we believe they do. I do not believe sin qualifies a man for office, but neither do I believe that sin necessarily disqualifies a man from political office. To put politicians on so high a pedestal is just plain foolish. It's the old "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion" nonsense.

If we start believing our politicians must be men who can do no wrong, then pretty soon we start believing that politicians, once elected, can do no wrong. And that will be the end of any vestige of property, freedom and peace we still enjoy in this country.

Herman Cain is not a saint. He is probably a sinner. Hopefully not a big sinner. But most of all he's a chump. He's a black man challenging a black, sitting President who, according to reports, has already written off the white working class and has pinned his reelection hopes on a coalition of black and Latino voters. Cain was an obvious threat to that coalition. We're chumps if we believe such a threat would not attract Axelrod's attention. Whether the most experienced, political, sexual hit man in the country saw an opportunity and seized it or made the whole Cain mutiny up out of whole cloth is virtually irrelevant.

The scary point is Axelrod's methods work on an American public steeped in celebrity, gossip and reality-show titillation. Sex sells and scandal breaks politicians as efficiently as my cats break Christmas tree ornaments.

Maybe Allen West is right. Maybe it's time we move on. The Cain thing is getting stale. Axelrod, the media and the American public are no doubt anxious for another episode.

So chumps, the suspense is killing me. Who's next?