Politico tries to smear Herman Cain with bad pizza

By Warner Todd Huston

Politico unleashed an incredibly misleading smear job on Herman Cain this week by attacking "his" Godfather's Pizza in a faux taste test in both written and video form. The idea was to see if Herman's pizza was a good product. Naturally the taste testers hated the pizza. But is Godfather's Pizza really Herman's pizza? Of course not.

Politico assembled a taste-testing panel made up of a Democrat operative, a Republican operative, and a food blogger. Three pizzas were presented in a blind tasting and the result was that the Godfather's pizza was deemed the worst of the bunch.

But was this a straight forward, unbiased test? Hardly.

First of all the Godfathers pie was already 2 hours old because the closest Godfather's chain restaurant was two hours away from where Politico held the tasting in Washington D.C.. Politico even admits that the closest Godfather's is "two hours away, deep in the heart of Virginia."

I don't know about you but if I was asked to evaluate a pizza that was hours old, I might not find it too tasty, either.

Then there is the trouble with the "Republican strategist" on the panel. It was one Doug Heye. Was he the GOP "balance" on the panel? Maybe not. It turns out that Heye is not merely a "Republican strategist," but was once the Republican National Committee spokesman. As establishment as establishment gets. And establishment Republicans are heavy Romney backers we all know.

It might seem unlikely that an establishment Republican could be disposed to be kind to insurgent candidate Herman Cain. But you be the judge.

All that aside there is an even greater problem with rating "Herman Cain's pizza." It isn't. Herman Cain's, I mean. You see Cain has not been associated with Godfather's pizza since 1995! How can we call Godfather's Pizza "his" when he hasn't been part of the company for some 15 years?

Are we to expect that Godfather's has made no ingredient change in 15 tears? No process alteration, to formula changes... nothing? Are we expected to believe that after 15 years Godfather's is frozen in time from 1995? Few corporations make no changes in 15 years, to be sure.

So, not only was the pie tasted a bit outside that 30-minute window of freshness, but the people tasting seem to have been politically biased, not to mention that said pizza could hardly be tagged as "Herman's" pizza because he's had no connection to the company for 15 years.

Could this all be any more biased?

© Warner Todd Huston