On "Face the Nation," Bob Schieffer chastised Herman Cain about the "smoking man" ad.

Bob Schieffer could not restrain himself within the role of journalist today. It was pretty ridiculous:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mister Cain, I-- I just have to ask you. What is the point of that, having a man smoke a cigarette in a television commercial for you?

HERMAN CAIN: One of the themes within this campaign is let Herman be Herman. Mark Block is a smoker, and we say let Mark be Mark. That's all we're trying to say because we believe let people be people. He doesn't deny that he's a smoker. This isn't trying to--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you a smoker?

HERMAN CAIN: No, I'm not a smoker. But I don't have a problem if that's his choice. So let Herman be Herman. Let Mark be Mark. Let people be people. This wasn't intended to send any subliminal signal whatsoever.

BOB SCHIEFFER: But it does. It sends a signal that it's cool to smoke.

HERMAN CAIN: No, it does not. Mark Block smokes. That's all that ad says. We weren't trying to say it's cool to smoke. You have a lot of people in this country that smoke but what I respect about Mark as a smoker, who is my chief of staff, he never smokes around me or smokes around anyone else. He goes outside.

BOB SCHIEFFER: But he smokes on television.

HERMAN CAIN: Well, he smokes on television. But that was no other subliminal message.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Was it meant to be funny?

HERMAN CAIN: It was meant to be informative, if they listen to the message where he said, "America has never seen a candidate like Herman Cain." That was the main point of it. And the-- the bit on the end, we didn't know whether it was going to be funny to some people or whether they were going to ignore it--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well--

HERMAN CAIN: --or whatever the c [...]

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