When I was in high school, I was involved with something called Model United Nations, which was basically an exercise in students dressing up in their parent's gigantic formal clothes, and going to conferences where they debated topics they knew very little about. Now I don't disparage the program, because it was actually quite formative in opening up my world view and exposing me to tons of issues (like the debates over throwing trash away in space...COPUOS anyone?). But let's be real here. For the majority of us participants, our knowledge about things like state-sponsored terrorism were not up to even Wikipedia standards.
With such a shallow pool of facts and critiques to draw from, students were often left to bring up the same talking points over and over and over again. Once someone found a shtick that worked for them, they held onto it for dear life, and with the utmost conviction. For example, one notorious classmate of mine, no matter what proposal you offered, would always get up and demand to know where the funding would come from. Brilliant! The art of saying something while saying absolutely nothing at all. Which brings me to Herman Cain:
Brilliant! I am actually quite impressed, once he gets going, with his ability to confidently hammer home a non-point over and over again. I am pretty sure Cain would've won the MUN Best Delegate Award multiple times.
-Tim
A blog from Protestants for the Common Good about faith and politics.
