How many reasons are there to dislike Huckabee?

I think I need to take a shower. That whole family is pretty sleazy.

I like how Huckabee calls himself a Christian. It'd be cute if he wasn't so deranged and in a position where the potential exists for the lunatic to become the leader of a supposedly free nation.

Still, I'd love to see him win the Republican nomination. It would be interesting to see how far Christians will go to apologize for this sick bastard.

Two boy scout counselors, 17 year old Clayton Frady and 18 year old David litickabee, the son of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

Sadly, sometimes these things happen to even good parents, but I have a hard time imagining that Al Gore's kids or Chelsea Clinton (for example) will ever be found to have committed wanton animal cruelty.

Ready to bust your irony meter? Huckabee wrote a book on school violence. What did he say about school violence?

Gov. Huckabee argues that legislation is not the answer. He believes that such crimes by children are the result of a "demoralization of America" and asks that we all take a look at ourselves and our families for the answer.
http://mikehuckabeepresident2008.blogspot.com/2005/03/kids-who-kill-con…

From a review of Huckabee's book:
"The authors conclude with thoughtful and well-considered praise of faith, family, and work as the keystones of individual responsible moral behavior."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/080541794X/qid=1111766051…

Aren't people who have a history of sadistically killing animals the exact kind of people who should be barred from getting guns nevermind concealed carry permits?

As far as bat-shit crazy evangelicals go, Huckabee comes off sane compared to the likes of Pat Robertson and others. It's not Huckabee that's the problem, it's all those Republican voters who have put Huckabee and Mitt Romney in the front of the pack and left the reasonably sane Republican candidates, like John McCain, in the back.

It's one more reason to assume Republicans are stupid:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/12/are-republicans-stupid.html

McCain squandered any "moderate" appeal by pandering to the fundies and the wingers.

McCain's "moderateness" has always been a creation of the Washington media. He's no moderate.

Yeah. His campaign finance reform was almost moderate.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=57E637CFF22FD8731…

If you follow that link, someone over at Pam's House Blend has found a Christmas card photo of the family. Jesting aside, that's a family that needs serious help and advice in nutrition. TIf you follow that link, someone over at Pam's House Blend has found a Christmas card photo of the family. Jesting aside, that's a family that needs serious help and advice in nutrition. T

No. 11: He thinks that the sure-fire way to end all violent crime in America is to arm everybody to the teeth.

Perhaps people should go to Huckabee rallies carrying placards saying 'Huxters for Huckabee.'

Holy crap that's a scary family photo. the boys look twisted.
the matching clothes are really creepy.

I have to admit I don't find all this discussion of Huckabee very interesting. I just can't fathom America electing a Baptist preacher as President after all the trouble we've had with Bush.

What I find intriguing, not having followed the Republican caucuses and whatnot, is that many newspapers have come out endorsing McCain. I thought he was dead in the water by now. I would consider voting for him if he admitted his dishonesty in reporting on the war (and pandering to Liberty U? Hmm... maybe that's too much to ask.)

I suspect that at some point that pervasive myth about high level civil servants being of superior stock and of better moral character, will have to be debunked. Funny how the voting populace needs to have this nasty little lie maintained in order to justify participating in the ritual charade otherwise known as voting.

As far as bat-shit crazy evangelicals go, Huckabee comes off sane compared to the likes of Pat Robertson and others.

Of course, saying that we would be better off with Huckabee as president than Pat Robertson as president is like saying that being bitten by an agitated cobra in a very sensitive region is a more pleasant sensation than being crushed by a falling baby grand piano.

Not to toot my own horn, but I had an anti-Huckabee Top Ten on line over a month ago. In other words, I hated Huckabee when hating Huckabee wasn't cool. Click on my name for the link.

Archaeopteryx wrote:

Not to toot my own horn,...

That would take either a very large horn or a lot of dexterity.

... but I had an anti-Huckabee Top Ten on line over a month ago.

Oh yea! Well, I got a picture of Rove creating Huckabee in his lab:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/11/roves-frankenstein.html

I hated Huckabee when hating Huckabee wasn't cool.

When did it become cool (or is that really "kewl")?

Bush tortured animals in his youth, too.

"Still, I'd love to see him win the Republican nomination. "

I wouldn't. Because then there would be at least a 50/50 chance of him becoming president.

"I just can't fathom America electing a Baptist preacher as President after all the trouble we've had with Bush."

Fathom harder.

If he won the nomination it would be a gift to the democratic candidate. I just don't see that happening. He might win in Iowa and South Carolina. His poll number in most other states just aren't that great.

How many reasons are there to dislike Huckabee?

At least ten.

I may have a few more here.

I have a hard time saying that his kid's actions are evidence of Huckabee failing as a father. He could have been the most conscientious, upstanding model of a parent imaginable, and his son still might have been screwed up in the head and despicable.

That said, I'm totally willing to damn him for trying to cover the whole thing up.

Celebrate American values with Mike Huckabee. Go shoot something.

"Now, I love to hunt. I'm a duck hunter first and foremost, because I do live in Arkansas. And anyone's going to hunt in that state and doesn't duck hunt, I appreciate them, because that's just more for me. I'm very grateful."
[...]
"But it was one of those moments where I finally decided: "You know, we only get one shot. If you miss, your hunt is over. If you hit, and you take the animal, then your hunt your is over as well." And I decided that one way or the other, this hunt is about to be over, because I can't stand any more of this cold. And somehow, by the grace of God, when I squeezed the trigger, my Weatherby .300 Mag, which has got to be the greatest gun, I think, ever made in the form of a rifle -- for my sake in hunting, I've never squeezed the trigger and not gotten something -- did its work, and somehow the angels took that bullet and went right to the antelope, and my hunt was over in a wonderful way."

SICK FUCK!

MODERATOR: Question two: President Bush has ordered all federal agencies to maximize hunting opportunities on federal land. If elected president, how would you advance this policy?

MR. HUCKABEE: Well, it's an important part of managing the wildlife. And, frankly, it's critical for the preservation of species and also for the preservation of the great traditions of hunting.

http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/Speeches.aspx?ID=46

FUCKING ASSHOLE!

You should really hope that Huckabee wins the nomination. It will be the best way to humiliate the Republican party and its evangelical base. The other parts of the Party are the business interests and libertarians and they hate Huckabee as much as we do, both culturally, and because of his ridiculously liberal spending record. So hope he wins, because when he loses in the following massacre it might just spell the end of the religious right for a long time.

Sicko:

"Interestingly enough," Huckabee allowed, "if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, 'This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency'."

I wonder if the poor stray dog was arguing for clemency as he/she was being strung up.

Bill C. wrote:

So hope he wins, because when he loses in the following massacre it might just spell the end of the religious right for a long time.

But do you really want the Republican party to be a party of religious fanatics? Wouldn't you rather have a balanced system where Republicans used to stand for the things Barry Goldwater used to stand for? They used to be a check on the excesses of the Democrats. That check dies when the old Republican party dies.

And what if you underestimated the numbers of fundy voters and Huckabee's ability to appeal to religious liberals with vague bromides. That and the new Repug ability to Swift Boat could give even Huckenstien a shot.

Maybe Huckabee can go on a hunting trip with Cheney and we'd be spared.
Norman #17, thanks for the LOLZ!...

Norman

"But do you really want the Republican party to be a party of religious fanatics? Wouldn't you rather have a balanced system where Republicans used to stand for the things Barry Goldwater used to stand for"

Well I have a suspicion that's where they'll go back to when they find that the religious fundie route is just going to lose them elections. There is too large a secular component to the Republican Party for them to become a party of religious fanatics. Not necessarily atheists but simply sane people who live in the real world, not Colorado Springs. That's another reason why I am hoping he wins the nomination. It may give the Repubs an excuse to go back to their roots.

But do you really want the Republican party to be a party of religious fanatics? Wouldn't you rather have a balanced system where Republicans used to stand for the things Barry Goldwater used to stand for? They used to be a check on the excesses of the Democrats. That check dies when the old Republican party dies.

They're choosing that for themselves. And I'd rather they hurt their cause overreaching than continue to slowly undermine modernity with their "moderates".

I have to wonder if the gun charge would even hurt Huckabee with the people he is targeting as prospective voters.

Hey, vote for Huckabee, if you like serial rapists/murderers (who happen to target Clinton relatives)

Still, if he chooses to push for economically populist policies and a softer foreign policy, he could rack up a lot of support.

Possession of a firearm immoral? And that's daddy's fault? Do go on. Let's hear what Skatje has to say about that hypothetical.

Apparently Huckabee has actually over emphasized or lied about his college education
http://archaeoporn.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=49

Sorry, wrong link there
http://archaeoporn.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/some-help-for-mike-huckabee/

#19: "I just can't fathom America electing a Baptist preacher as President after all the trouble we've had with Bush."

Fathom harder.

As entertaining as it would be, I don't think he'll make it through the primaries, let alone the general. WaPo just put up an interesting article about how a big part of Hukabee's support and ground operations in Iowa are from networks of home-schoolers:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR20071…

That works in Iowa, but not in other parts of the country where the homeschooler movement isn't that strong. He's very low on cash, and the wealthy/business-oriented wing of the party won't give him a dime. They're terrified of his economic policies. The neocons are backing Rudy, and they'll switch to Romney when it's clear that Rudy can't win any of the early primaries. Bottom line: Huck's support is very fragile, despite what it looks like in Iowa right now.

If he won the nomination it would be a gift to the democratic candidate. I just don't see that happening.

that's word for word what a lot of us recall saying about GW.

imagine our shock.

fool me once...

the discussion shouldn't be could huckabee be elected (he could), the discussion should be, what country is best suited for expatriot americans at this point?

I'm shooting for NZ, personally.

There is too large a secular component to the Republican Party for them to become a party of religious fanatics.

tell that to Rick Santorum, et al.

However, there is more to it than that. the neocons realized long ago that the fundies are an excellent grass roots support base.

they simply don't give a shit about how it has affected the "party" in general, since being elected to them is all about the exercise of power in the grander goal of providing the "american dream" to the world anyway.

all you have to do is go to the PNAC site to see where "the party" is at.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

fundies are just a means to an end to the movers and shakers in the GOP for the last 25 years or so, and they simply don't care if there is collateral damage to the constitution, or even the very freedoms that were granted by it, along the way. It's like they really believe in the old delusion of "Manifest Destiny".

GW's term in office was simply establishing the monetary and political bases needed to progress the very ideas anybody can easily read on the PNAC site.

oh, and they all personally get filthy rich in the process, which is also a good thing, since all that money will trickle down and feed the economy, of course.

it's not just the blind leading the blind, it's the blind and DELUDED leading the blind and deluded.

frankly, I don't see any hope in the near future that the neocons will lose their influence on the direction of the GOP.

you'd pretty much have to have a clean sweep, with dems in 66% majority in both houses, for at least 12 years, before the neocons would slink back under their rocks.

ain't gonna happen.

There is too large a secular component to the Republican Party for them to become a party of religious fanatics.

Nice theory and it was true once. So where are these moderate, secular Barry Goldwater Republicans. All but extinct.

The Theocratic party has been taken over by the fundies and they have driven a lot of the secular old time conservatives into hiding or exile.

Don't count on a religious bigot with a brain the size of a walnut like Huckabee not to be elected. Most civilizations commit suicide sooner or later and it might just be the American empires turn.

WaPo just put up an interesting article about how a big part of Hukabee's support and ground operations in Iowa are from networks of home-schoolers...

And this is supposed to reassure us how? In my nightmares, homeschoolers are secretly running the country. These people are passionate about what they believe in (no matter how nutty what they believe in seems to us rational folks) to a degree that's hard to comprehend. That passion, coupled with the fact that they're at home during the workday, is a powerful "force multiplier." (This is also, as I've discovered to my chagrin, true of curmudgeonly retirees vis a vis municipal budget referenda!)

Homeschoolers can (probably are) make "saving America for Christ" an interdisciplinary school project, effectively drafting their kids into a Children's Crusade.

Nope, Homeschoolers Heart Huckabee is a terrifying bumpersticker, not a reassuring one.

".....admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death."

"A campaign official says David regrets the incident and notes that he later made Eagle Scout."

That's nice. It must have been the Merit Badge for Vivisection And Small Animal Torture that finally qualified him.

When ministers' kids go bad, things can get ugly. For example, the upstanding Grunke boys of Wisconsin: http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Uncensored:Laura_Tennessen

Bill Dauphin wrote:

In my nightmares, homeschoolers are secretly running the country.

I'm sorry to inform you, that was no dream. The home schoolers go to regent university and get jobs in Bush's justice department.

Gah, what is it with the new batch of Republicans and pets? First we find out that Romney thinks it's a good idea to drive to Canada with the family dog in a crate tied to the roof of the car, and now there's this. Rudy's attempt to ban ferrets probably fits in here, too.

Is this part of a project to make Dubya look good? The man's got a lot of faults, but at least he's nice to his dogs.

Re: #9 & #12:

Excuse me? Are you people for real?

What, exactly, do these things have to do with anything? There are plenty of reasons to consider Huckabee a bad choice for president (personally, just the fact that he's a clergymen is more than enough to put me off) without insinuating that the fact that his family is overweight or that they pose for schlocky Christmas photos should be among them.

Obesity and bad taste in Xmas photo costumage are the least of our worries and calling attention to it in our opponents unnecessarily marginalizes those of us who are on the same side who may be fat or have questionable fashion sense.

chaos_engineer wrote:

Is this part of a project to make Dubya look good? The man's got a lot of faults, but at least he's nice to his dogs.

Are they really? They dress Barney and Miss Beasley in weird clothes and bows and force them to act in Christmas movies that mock their dog intelligences.

Zebu, they're just trying to say that the Huckabee men look great in black and white stripes.

I'm going to vote for Huckabee because he has a cute name, like Huckleberry Piglet or something.

I'm going to vote for Huckabee because he has a cute name, like Huckleberry Piglet or something.

don't even joke about that; I KNOW people who base their actual votes on just that kind of reasoning.

btw, I believe that was "Huckleberry Hound"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_Hound

The term "Huckleberry" can be a slang synonym for a rube or an amateur, and that seems to fit Huck's personality.

uh huh.

So, Huck will stay in the race till the last dog is hung?

-- CV

I'm a Republican, and I'm convinced PZ has created Mike Huckabee out of whole cloth. Letting out rapists and being an apologist for puppy-torture? C'mon, that can't be real.

It was a good gag, professor. A lot of us Republicans get the joke; soft-on-crime big-government ignorant weirdos could theoretically come on either side of the aisle, and the worst could be a Republican. If Mike Huckabee were real, anyway.

--JRM

If Mike Huckabee were real, anyway.

--JRM

i realize you were kidding, but seriously, it DOES seem to be the case that most republican voters have buried their head in the sand, and simply refuse to see how destructive their party has become over the last 25 years.

you can lay out a laundry list 10 pages long of all the crap the reps have pulled, in the white house and in congress, all verified in triplicate, and the very next day they will act as if they had never seen any of it.

it's truly weird.

but... bring up monicagate, and they seem to remember every gory detail.

I believe that was "Huckleberry Hound"...

Yeah, I know. :-) But "Huckleberry Piglet" is cuter (and even more ridiculous!)

but... bring up monicagate, and they seem to remember every gory detail.

Yup. Clinton "shamed" America, but W is "strong" a "doing the unpopular thing" to "protect" us. (After all, W sez he's sworn to do so. Never mind that oath about upholding the Constitution. Geez, the man doesn't even know his own job description!)

Yeah Huckabee does seem like a satire. Give him a guitar, and he's Bob Roberts.

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/12/huckabee-homosex…

Ummm yeah... he's just to the right of Pat Buchanan.