Really, after this performance today at the National Press Club, people should stop using psychedelic drugs. What’s the point?

(H/T: Business Insider)

UPDATE: Commenter Edward Hamilton probably speaks for many people here:

On balance, though, I have a hard time actively disliking someone who breaks into a hymn in front of a press conference. In that sense he’s nothing like Ross Perot, who consistently seemed crazy in the jittery way of a doomed guest star on the X-Files. Cain consistently manages to be crazy in pleasant and affable ways, though it remains to be seen whether that gets him farther than Perot.

In contrast to the comment above, I don’t necessarily feel as though this drives me to the arms of a flawless teleprompter reader like Mitt. If anything, it just reminds me that politics is so overscripted and starved for authenticity that almost any risk-taking seems charming by comparison. He might be a weird human being, but he’s undeniably human.

UPDATE.2: Commenter Brian points out, correctly, that in context of the entire video, Cain’s performance doesn’t look strange at all. He didn’t just burst into song. He was asked to sing. Here’s the entire video; go to around the 58:00 mark for context. Cain He said he would do so as an opportunity to offer a testimony to what his religious faith has done for him. In the fuller context, especially given that he was asked, as a final question, to favor the audience with a song, what he did strikes me as charming. I withdraw the accusation of bizarreness.