I read Katrina’s post with interest, but one thing really caught my attention — so I went to the original New York Times story and checked it out. Yep, the story does indeed say Cain referred to the “character assignation” being conducted against him. I presume he meant to refer to “character assassination”; I will not speculate as to why the word “assignation” came to his mind instead.
UPDATE: Oho! The NYT has silently changed the word to “assassination.” If there was a Freudian slip, the guilty party is not the beleaguered candidate but somebody at the Times . . .
Evidently the NYT corrected itself after you looked at it, because when I just clicked on your link to it, it reads assassination, rather than assignation.
Did it really read assignation in the original NYT piece?
And if so, was it a slip or was it intentional?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAll I see is "assassination." Guess it was corrected, I didn't see the story earlier, but it would be a NYT blogger Freudian slip, not Cain's. Could have even been an auto spell checker error. He spoke it, didn't write it. The two words don't sound anything alike.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs CEO of a domestic company, Cain's knowledge of foreign affairs has seemed weak in the debates. Though perhaps a 1%-er he does not seem to have been given any sweetheart deals from the government that have been disclosed in any revealing testimony so far. He is the owner of a corporate Lear Jet however.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePlease speculate Michael. What are you trying to say - or do you prefer your character assasination vague?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I will not speculate as to why the word “assignation” came to his mind instead."
Your "non-speculation" reminds me quite a bit of Garrison Keillor's famous "non-accusation" of Norm Coleman as being responsible for Paul Wellstone's death.
When it comes to Cain, in several supposedly humorous posts, you have displayed about the same level of class as Keillor does at his nastiest and most vindictive.
Coming from a supposed Christian, you show yourself to be very petty, mean-spirited and uncharitable, and with a really ugly and un-funny sense of "humor."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseProbably an error on the part of NYT, and probably intentional. Just another day at a propaganda organ.
d(^_^)b
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“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
probably just a result of a spell check program and the writer/proofreader/editor not paying close enough attention.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePerhaps no one originally made any mistake at all.
Maybe Cain meant by assignation, "the act of assigning something to someone -- transfer."
So, what he meant by "character assignation" was the media and these accusers assigning to him the character of a scoundrel, say, like, um, the 42nd President of the United States.
So, he was asking, "Why are you assigning Bill Clinton's character to me?"
The monkey business at the NYT started when they caught Cain's alternative original meaning, and so as to avoid embarrassing references to the Wonder Bubba with whom the NYT had its own metaphorical love affair, they have scrubbed Cain's statement of its actual word choice.
Just a thought.
In the alternative, Cain said assassination, and the NYT maligned his word choice to further embarrass him.
So, either way, the NYT loses more readers.
Oops. That would've happened regardless, huh?
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