Herman Cain: The pizza guy with tasteless sauce

I FIRST ENCOUNTERED Herman Cain as a resonant radio voice while surfing the dial as I drove home from Lima, Oh., last summer. Although I was struck by his articulate nonsense, it would never have occurred to me that he was setting himself up as a presidential candidate. Here, after all, was just another nutty talk show host no different than all of the other right-wing turkeys who either want to save my soul, or my country, or both, whichever comes first.

I should have figured that Cain was up to no good when he and his callers thought it was sooo clever to reference President Obama's middle name, Hussein. Later I learned that Herman (whose last name escaped me at the time) was the founder of Godfather Pizza.

I love pizza, but that's of no importance today because Cain is sounding more llke a don than a pizza salesman as he sets out on his impossible dream to be the president himself.

Cain has cast himself as the leading Republican candidate against Muslims. He wants them to take loyalty tests to prove their validity as Americans.

As an African -American, Cain must surely know about the abuses that blacks have suffered at the hands of pure white Americans. How inconvenient for him. But history, as Sarah Palin again demonstrated, is of little value in the scrap heap of mindless political ambition. So be prepared for a lot of popularized attacks from the nativists on Muslims as well as Hispanics (also fodder on the political stump) on the path to the presidential election, all in the name of the flag.

Meantime, be a good American and keep that in mind the next time your order a pizza.