THAT LAREWNCE O'DONNELL INTERVIEW OF HERMAN CAIN...

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matthew 7:1-2)

I did not SEE it, but excerpts of Lawrence O'Donnell's October 6 interview of Presidential candidate Herman Cain (on MSNBC) were all over talk radio yesterday. The biggest controversy was the fact that Cain (a Black man) was NOT involved in the civil rights movement. In Cain's new book, he states that he was very young at the time and that his father had taught him that he should stay out of trouble and continue to sit at the back of the bus, etc. (Cain was living in Georgia at the time.) Cain stated in the book that he was in high school at the height of the civil rights movement.

Lawrence O'Donnell verbally attacked Herman Cain about this. While the WORD was not explicitly used, O'Donnell essentially called Cain a liar. O'Donnell stated that Cain was in fact at MOOREHOUSE COLLEGE from 1963 through 1967 and that THIS was the height of the civil rights movement. Cain DID sound a bit uncomfortable and honestly like he was trying to dodge O'Donnell's questions.

I DO think, however, that there's another side to all this. A number of critics of Cain stated on the radio yesterday that "had Rosa Parks NOT sat at the back of the bus Herman Cain could not be running for President today". In fact, Rosa Parks DID sit at the back of the bus! Did you catch that: ROSA PARKS DID SIT AT THE BACK OF THE BUS!

Rosa Parks' "crime" is that she was asked to get up from her seat at the back of the bus and allow a white man to sit there who otherwise would have had to stand. Listen, I agree with Rosa Parks. That was an ABSURD request of her, and the whole Jim Crow thing in the South was wrong and absurd, but that is what happened. The Rosa Parks thing also happened in the middle 1950s, not the middle 1960s!

I believe the whole "Brown vs. Board of Education" decision which desegregated public schools came down in 1954, the year I was born. I know the whole Little Rock, Arkansas desegregation of the high school which meant federal troops being dispatched took place in 1957. The George Wallace "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" blocking of blacks from Alabama State Colleges happened in early 1963.

I think that if Cain's Dad was (dare I say it) an "Uncle Tom" who asked his son to keep a low profile at this time, then I think he did the right thing to honor his Dad. (Don't get me wrong, I think Cain HAS waffled on this, and I think it WOULD certainly have been impressive if he'd have been active in the civil rights movement. I have not made up my mind about which Republican candidate I will support (I'm a Republican) but this interview doesn't make me think badly of Herman Cain.

I don't remember his "pre-Pope name" but Pope John Paul II was often hailed for his support of Jews and fighting Nazi policies in Poland during WW 2. In fact, the Pope ultimately came forward and stated that while he deplored the Nazi treatment of the Jews in WW2 he did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the cause, and was embarrassed to be hailed and praised for something he did not do.

I would rather think of John Paul's LATER record in life for which he is best remembered and I am most interested in the Herman Cain of the past ten years when I think of fitness for the Presidency.