At one time VDH was a respected historian. Now he just parrots Beck, Levin, et al. in his Obama hatred.

Cain is authentically African-American and of an age to remember the Jim Crow South; Obama, the son of an elite Kenyan and a white graduate student, came of age as a Hawaiian prep-schooler, whose civil-rights credentials are academic. Cain’s lack of experience and seemingly embarrassing ignorance about the right of return or nuclear China are amplified by his unaffected style, whereas Obama’s similar gaffes (57 states) and buffoonery (inflating tires to preclude drilling for oil) are mitigated by metrosexual cool. After all, we live in an age when Herman Cain, with his black hat, his deep Southern cadences, and his ease among tea-party crowds, is suspect, whereas Barack Obama booms on about ‘millionaires and billionaires’ while golfing, jetting to Martha’s Vineyard, and shaking down demonized corporate-jet owners at $35,000 a pop.

Hanson’s use of the MBF for Cain and Obama’s respective gaffes is asinine. The “57 states” was clearly a slip of the tongue (he’d visited 47 states at the time he said it.) And the thing about tire pressure “buffoonery” is that it would actually save us 5% in gas mileage (not insignificant) if everyone’s tires were properly inflated.

Cain, on the other hand, has shown total ignorance regarding two important fundamental foreign policy matters: the right of return and China’s nuclear weapons. Both of these foreign policy issues have been around for 50 years. Cain’s lack of knowledge regarding them is stunning for a supposedly serious prez candidate. Kinda like Palin having no idea what the Bush Doctrine was.

As for degree of blackness, who the hell is a guy like Hanson to measure something so vague? What degree of “authentic black experience” does he have from which to judge?

Hanson was once a serious academic. Now he picks up Limbaugh’s crumbs. Sad.