It's extremely rare to see an old school broadcaster lose their cool, but then again, when you're 68 and a bladder cancer survivor, props to the CBS newsman for putting some emotion into his interview (Schieffer has said that he blamed his cancer on his former three pack a day cigarette habit)
BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you a smoker?
HERMAN CAIN: No, I'm not a smoker. But I don't have a problem if that's his choice. So let Herman be Herman. Let Mark be Mark. Let people be people. This wasn't intended to send any subliminal signal whatsoever.
BOB SCHIEFFER: But it does. It sends a signal that it's cool to smoke.
HERMAN CAIN: No, it does not. Mark Block smokes. That's all that ad says. We weren't trying to say it's cool to smoke. You have a lot of people in this country that smoke but what I respect about Mark as a smoker, who is my chief of staff, he never smokes around me or smokes around anyone else. He goes outside.
BOB SCHIEFFER: But he smokes on television.
HERMAN CAIN: Well, he smokes on television. But that was no other subliminal message.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Was it meant to be funny?
HERMAN CAIN: It was meant to be informative, if they listen to the message where he said, "America has never seen a candidate like Herman Cain." That was the main point of it. And the— the bit on the end, we didn't know whether it was going to be funny to some people or whether they were going to ignore it—
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well—
HERMAN CAIN: —or whatever the case may be.
BOB SCHIEFFER: —let me just tell you, it's not funny to me.
BS News)
HERMAN CAIN: Okay.
BOB SCHIEFFER: I am a cancer survivor—
HERMAN CAIN: Right.
BOB SCHIEFFER: —like you.
HERMAN CAIN: I am also.
BOB SCHIEFFER: I had cancer that's smoking related.
HERMAN CAIN: Yes.
BOB SCHIEFFER: I don't think it serves the country well. And this is an editorial opinion here, to be showing someone smoking a cigarette. And— and you are the front-runner now. And it seems to me as front-runner, you would have a responsibility, not to take that kind of a tone in this. I would suggest that perhaps, as the front-runner, you'd want to raise the level of the campaign.
HERMAN CAIN: We will do that, Bob. And I do respect your objection to the ad. And probably about thirty percent of the feedback was very similar to yours. It was not intended to offend anyone. And being a cancer— being a cancer survivor myself, I am sensitive to that sort of thing.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Would you take the ad down?
HERMAN CAIN: Well, it's on the internet. We didn't run it on TV. And once—
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, why don't you—
HERMAN CAIN: Once—
BOB SCHIEFFER: —take it off the internet?
HERMAN CAIN: It's impossible to do now. Once you put it on the internet, it goes viral. We could take it off of our website but there are other sites that have already picked it up. It's nearly impossible to— to erase that ad from the internet.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Have— have you ever thought of just saying to young people, don't smoke? Four hundred thousand people in America die every year—
HERMAN CAIN (overlapping): I—
BOB SCHIEFFER: —from smoking related.
HERMAN CAIN: I will have no problem saying that. And matter of fact—
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, say it right now.
HERMAN CAIN: Young people of America, all people, do not smoke. It is hazardous and it's dangerous to your health. Don't smoke. I've— I've never smoked and I have encouraged people not to smoke. So, I don't—
BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): And it's not a cool thing to do.
HERMAN CAIN: It is not a cool thing to do. And that's— that's not what I was trying to say. Smoking is not a cool thing to do.
Over at Meet The Press, the legendary Tom Brokaw was disgusted, and didn't hold back either, (nor did Mike Murphy when he got a chance to react):
MR. BROKAW: I must say, on the Cain thing, I was stunned by that ad that he did with his campaign manager, ending it smoking a cigarette, which in my judgment is one of the great health hazards in America in terms of lethal diseases and also the cost of it all. I think that maybe 9-9-9 stands for you got nine months to live with lung cancer, nine months to live with emphysema, nine months to live with coronary artery disease. I can't imagine why they thought that that was an effective image.
MR. GREGORY: Well...
MR. MURPHY: If you look at Cain's...
MR. GREGORY: ...what was that image? Was this not a message to the tea party saying, you know what, "They want to take away our cigarettes, too, and we're going to take America back."
MR. GREGORY: I mean, maybe that was too cute by half, if it was really that.
MR. MURPHY: I think it, it was a—I'm guessing. You know, you never know. You look at Cain's travel schedule, he's in Alabama doing book tours. I'm not sure if it was tobacco the guy was smoking. It...
MR. GREGORY: Well, that's what James Carville said.
When Cain talks foreign policy, hold your breath. You never know what he might say. He's blasting Obama regarding Iraq, when he sounds like he's criticizing about Afghanistan, which makes a little more logical sense, since the announcement that U.S. troops will leave at the end of the year is only really surprising that there won't be some residual force, since that's usually what happens with the U.S. in foreign policy.
When told that it was George W. Bush was the president who signed the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government in 2008 that declared that all U>S. troops would be out of the country at the end of 2011, Cain said Bush was "irresponsible."
He also bashed Planned Parenthood once again. As Politico reports:
Schieffer also pushed Cain on his history of comments attacking Planned Parenthood as an organization that favors "genocide" in the black community — comments Cain said he still believes.
"I still stand by that," Cain said. "If people go back and look at the history and look at Margaret Sanger’s own words, that’s exactly where that came from ... What I’m saying is, Planned Parenthood isn’t sincere about wanting to try to counsel them not to have abortions."
