Herman Cain is theoretically a great candidate for president. He’s a smart, black, successful, conservative “outsider.” But as the reality sets in, it’s clear that Mr. Cain is barely more ready for the office he seeks than Sarah Palin (or Barack Obama) was four years ago. Cain’s performance in a long interview on Monday crystallized this view which has been forming in the minds of many GOP voters in recent weeks.

Mr. Cain’s responses in Saturday’s Republican debate in South Carolina – which focused on foreign policy – were a bunch of platitudes about getting good advice before making a decision. Frequently, his answers on topics that he doesn’t really know much about focus on a few points of process, on getting quality advice, on not needing to know everything in advance, and so on.

But this is the real world and these are dangerous times. While the 2012 election will primarily be about jobs and the economy, events across the Arab world and escalating tensions between Iran and Israel – not least because of the IAEA’s most recent report about advances in Iran’s nuclear weapon program – make foreign policy and national security expertise critically important in our next president.

If there is anything America has been reminded of by Barack Obama, it’s that the presidency is no place for on-the-job training – and it’s even less so when potential nuclear conflict is involved.

Herman Cain gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Monday in which his answers on questions about Libya – and his further discussion with the newspaper’s editors on broader foreign policy issues – sounded like a student trying hard to remember the answers for a test he’s been cramming for.

Please read the rest of my article for the American Spectator here:
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/15/hermans-just-not-ready

And here’s the Libya part of the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jsonline#p/u/8/WW_nDFKAmCo