Huckabee, Media’s Nice Guy, Was the First Republican to Smear Gays in ’08 Debate
New York Times columnist Gail Collins perfectly captures the conventional wisdom about Mike Huckabee in today’s edition:
Why would the family values crowd prefer a batshit crazy adulterating New Yorker, a Hollywood actor/abortion lobbyist or a Mormon to one of their own?
Like Bill Clinton, Huckabee was born in a town called Hope and became a pretty good governor of a state that doesn’t make it all that easy. (Plus, you have to love the fact that he lived for a while in a mobile home on the Arkansas Statehouse grounds.) He’s extremely inclusive, defending minorities who are illegal immigrants as well as the ones registered to vote.
Inclusive? Preacher Huckabee was the first and only ’08 candidate (so far) to slur a gay person, who also happens to be a member of Congress:
“Let’s face it,” he recently told a crowd of Christian conservatives in Iowa… “In our lifetimes, we’ve seen our country go from ‘Leave It to Beaver’ to ‘Beavis and Butt-head,’ from Barney Fife to Barney Frank, from ‘Father Knows Best’ to television shows where father knows nothing.”
Collins continues:
On the downside, I think he’d be a terrible president. He doesn’t know beans about foreign affairs, he wants to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, and his positions on social issues are far to the right of the general populace. But why aren’t the social conservatives rallying around this guy? Unlike any of the major candidates, he’s still on his first wife and first position on abortion.
Why would the family values crowd prefer a batshit crazy adulterating New Yorker, a Hollywood actor/abortion lobbyist or a Mormon to one of their own?
Because the Cheney-Bush crowd has spent the last six years scaring the bejesus out of them. These feeble-minded souls are convinced that Osama has an army of suiciders on its way to blow up every Walmart store in America. They want someone who will protect them.
Perhaps types Establishment (or maybe non-Southerners) can’t see Huckabee as his own peeps do. They sense weakness, or at least a decided lack of toughness. (His signature accomplishment is losing 110 pounds.)
Huckabee’s jab at Barney Frank, which was briefly a soundbite from a debate in March, was a pathetic attempt to pander to the haters. It didn’t work because it was way too mild.
If he can’t smear a queer better than that, how can he protect me Osama bin Laden?
