The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

When It Rains, It Pours

Posted on | October 3, 2011 | 14 Comments

Herman Cain Set to Win S.C. Debate
— headline, Wednesday, May 4

Things keep happening that nobody but me predicted, and predictions that were ignored when I made them are forgotten when they come true. A commenter on a previous post said, “The whining is unbecoming,” to which I replied, “An admission of failure is not ‘whining.’ ”

Just as nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure, and when that first tiny snowball of fail starts rolling downhill, expect an avalanche.

It is not in the least surprising, therefore, to see my friend Sunshine State Sarah aggregating May headlines about Herman Cain, none of them as prescient as my pre-debate prediction of Cain’s victory in Greenville.

Obviously, my friend Sarah did not consciously set out to humiliate me. It is simply that the sources she cites — Erick Erickson at Red State, Patrick O’Connor at the Wall Street Journal, Tony Lee at Human Events — are respected, authoritative and influential, as I am not.

This is why the Massive Cosmic Bitch-Slap of 2:21 p.m. ET Sunday struck me with such overpowering force. If ever the universe reached out to tap me on the shoulder and say, “You’ve failed,” that was it. And failure has no educational value if you refuse to admit you’ve failed.

By God, I hate failure and I despise defeat. It gives me no pleasure to call attention to my public embarrassment, to advertise the fact of my professional failure. The psychic pain is so intense that my fingers tremble with rage to type these words, as I behold my entire career — everything I’ve ever accomplished in my life as a journalist — mocked and spurned as if it were a complete waste of time.

“Line up and look him in the eye and say, ‘I’m going to beat you today,’ and then knock him on his butt. Hit him as hard as you can, then come back on the next play and do it again. Just keep at it until you’ve got him beat.”

Tim Crunk calling plays in the huddle with tears in his eyes is the kind of lesson that’s hard to forget. I have failed, but I am not yet defeated.

Because I didn’t come this far to start losing now.


Category: Cargo Cult of the Blog Gods, Football, Herman Cain, Sunshine State Sarah

Comments

14 Responses to “When It Rains, It Pours”

  1. Joe
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 6:35 pm

    Now MSNBC opining…

    http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/03/8118626-first-thoughts-perrys-bleeding-continues

    Sorry.  I get my information from Robert Stacy McCain.   Because he says things like this: 

    I have failed, but I am not yet defeated.
    Because I didn’t come this far to start losing now.

    Damn straight. 

  2. Zilla of the Resistance
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 6:41 pm

    Hell yeah.
     

  3. Anonymous
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 6:41 pm

    You’ve probably never had the experience of watching a guy work himself up into a berserker rage in real-time. Enjoy the show.

    AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!

  4. Zilla of the Resistance
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 6:53 pm

    Awesome. Go kick some ass and take some names. You’ve got a legion of  The Other McCainiacs from your comments section cheering you on. You show those bastards, Stacy, you show ’em good! 

  5. DaveO
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 7:03 pm

    Actually, yes, but then someone dialed in his bombvest.

    Seriously, it was awful. Just like a Tucker Carlson bowtie.

    Herman Cain is now considered as someone other than a sideshow, and he trapped himself in the controversy over Perry’s rock.

  6. ltw
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 7:15 pm

    “guaranteed to grab Stacy McCain’s attention”

    http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/2011/03/rule-5-herman-cain-tweet.html
    No guarantee to help.

  7. Finrod Felagund
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 7:32 pm

    After watching Erick Erickson spam his own site Friday, I lost a lot of respect for him, and I know a number of others on the Right did too.  Stacy, keep the faith and you will be rewarded; maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will come.  The Good Book tells us that.

    You’re my single best source of conservative news right now.  Keep up the good work.

  8. McGehee
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 7:52 pm

    You’ve probably never had the experience of watching a guy work himself up into a berserker rage in real-time.

    Only because I don’t carry a mirror. I’m told it is indeed a heck of a show, so I’m looking forward to it.

  9. ThePaganTemple
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 8:40 pm

    Erickson is an on-again off-again teevee pundit now. He’s one of the kewl kids, so he doesn’t care what we think anymore. He’s busy eating that RINO stew.

  10. Datechguy's Blog » Blog Archive » I have no interest in anything Robert Stacy McCain says…
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 5:20 pm

    […] I am totally uninterested in his successful prediction of Herman Cain debate win of May. […]

  11. Asscheeks of Saturn
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 9:41 pm

    Maybe you should start drinkin’. Eric loves to write about some drinkin’ and campaignin’. 

  12. Blogger Buried Alive
    October 3rd, 2011 @ 7:58 pm

    […] my bleg, causing Slublog and his fellow AoS Moron Chap to PayPal some money to me. So, I understand his bleak mood when he sees his likely better informed coverage of an issue that caused a Cain stumble passed over […]

  13. Sarah Rumpf
    October 4th, 2011 @ 5:01 pm

    Stacy, you know I link to you a lot. Maybe I should add a snippet of code to my post template to just insert the latest The Other McCain post at the end of every one of my posts? 

    Heck, I’ll do it if you will – considering how many more hits your site gets than mine, that’s one heckuva great deal for me! 

    – Sarah 😉

  14. Sarah Rumpf
    October 4th, 2011 @ 5:14 pm

    Updated post: http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com/2011/10/more-2020-hindsight-regarding-herman.html

    :p