Tête-à-Tête-Tête

Back in December, I posted some concern that Huckabee might take the GOP nomination, and possibly pose a stronger-than-Romney contest against the Democrats in the General. That was because my peek at him so far gave me the impression of a fair-spoken, sometimes moderate on issues like health and immigration, candidate with real conservative bona-fides to keep the religious right happy and mollify the neo-cons. I didn’t think the small government types on the right would be thrilled with him, but I thought they would take him as easily as they would McCain and stay on board with the GOP nomination. He displayed some gracious southern charm, and seemed to run a positive campaign while the front-runners were busy sniping at one another. He had populist rhetoric and a congenial demeanor that would appeal in the general election better than the sometimes forced pronouncements of his competitors who seemed to have trouble positioning themselves in the sweet spot that must surely exist somewhere in that Kristoll-Gingrich-Falwell triangle…

Then, all at once, I discovered enough about the real Mike Huckabee that I had to laugh at myself for taking him seriously for even a moment. I wonder if those who caucused for him in Iowa have felt any buyers remorse, too?

People in private conversations have asked me, “what was it? What swung your perception so suddenly? Is he really that far out there? Show me!” So, I’ll tell you the story now, and how it evolved for me.

The first big chink was in NH, but before that there were some early signs. Huckabee tried a gambit to poison Romney on religion… You probably remember it, with his non-accusation that Mormons believe that Jesus & the Devil are brothers (which isn’t really entirely accurate in the first place). Suddenly, my own extremely religiously conservative family seemed put-off. I won’t quote them directly, but they did not appreciate the attack on Romney’s religion, despite being natural partisans of the farthest religious right candidate available. I figured that the back-handed attack politics might drive Romney’s negatives up, and not do too much damage to Huckabee’s image as an above-board campaigner.

Then that big chink came. You heard about it, too: Huckabee produced a vicious attack ad on Romney, then tried to pretend to take the “high” ground, by pulling it before it ran - and showing the media what he pulled. Perhaps his calculation was that he could get his attack message out, and at the same time paint himself as a saint for not running the attack message. Whatever it was, it was clearly calculation - and not a very clever one. It was clear that he was being duplicitous, negative, and hamfisted, all at the same time - coming out of a win in Iowa where he could have pushed his positive persona better by keeping an outward semblance of honesty, positivity, and competence… essentially the areas that differentiated him from the “front-runners”, and possibly helped him win Iowa. It was clear to me then that Huckabee was a phony - and if it was clear to me then, I had little reason to doubt that others would figure it out soon enough.

But there was another crack that appeared concomittantly with the anti-Romney ad. I posted a link to Dave’s blog at the time. One of Romney’s supposed failings, according to the ad: No Executions. Obviously, his hope was to drive Romney’s negatives up among the pro-death-penalty camp. But, it was a vacuous charge in the first place, as Massachussetts had no death penalty during Romney’s tenure there. Even worse, it was crass and dehumanizing - even among many supporters of the death penalty - many of whom do at least look on it as a “necessary evil”, rather than something to positively crow about. That opened my eyes even wider than the botched ju jitsu against Romney: that Huckabee could view having overseen the execution of convicts as a prerequisite, and something to be proud of. It seemed to me (and seems still) that this is a person playing political calculations with peoples lives. Not good.

After the chink appeared, it was as though the floodgates opened. There is something in Huckabee’s record that has emerged before or since then to alienate just about every chunk of the Republican primary constituency - and the general election constiuency. And those constituencies have every right to be alienated. He isn’t just a fake - he’s a cold, hollow, amoral, and unconvincing fake. Let’s look at the real Mike Huckabee for a minute. But this is enough for the front page. Let’s take this below the fold…

What would alienate the small-government types from a Mike Huckabee candidacy? Well, I already mentioned the populist rhetoric. For starters, the spectre of more money for influence horse-trading. Like this:

Mike Huckabee accepted more than 90 gifts from 21 Arkansans he appointed to state posts during his decade as governor, a Politico analysis of state public records found.

Since he set his sights on the White House, those supporters, their families and their companies have kept on giving. They contributed nearly $161,000 to a pre-presidential campaign account and Huckabee’s official campaign committee since late last year, according to state and federal campaign finance records.

This, among 13 other ethics complaints, some not a big deal, some - like the twin-engine plane bought for personal ownership using campaign donations, hidden from auditors - maybe more of a big deal. (Benny Hinn writ small?)… So for the general election, this may be a turn-off for some voters but many of us will excuse it - “don’t all politicians do this kind of stuff?” But for the small-government types - at least the sincere ones - this is exactly the sort of behavior that they are against. Beating it is what motivates them. Bad news for him in the primary.

If that wasn’t enough, Huckabee spent $13,000 of tax payer money to destroy government property to get rid of the records of what he did in office. Then AR spent $335,000 to replace the destroyed equipment. Ouch.

What about the religious right? What could this former Baptist minister do to alienate them? Surely these are his bread & butter voters, and he knows better than to step on their toes, right?
…
Right?

Remember this quote to CBN?

“I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree.”

Sounds good to the religious right… except that some of those folks value honesty. So where is the dishonesty? He dropped out of seminary, without a theology degree. Joe Carter, Huckabee’s director of research says:

Governor Huckabee doesn’t have a theology degree. He only spent a year in seminary.

Will some subset of religious voters be turned off by prevaricating about religious credentials? I think so. Some of them might be put off just on the question of taste, though. Those who didn’t want their kids to learn about oral sex from the Clinton scandals might not want their kids to learn about this, either… In trying to pander to the redneck vote, Huckabee bashed Senator McCain and Gov. Romney for taking issue with the SC flag. He said, and I quote:

You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole.

“Mommy, where should those outside agitators stick that flag pole, and why?”

What other nuttiness might cost Huckabee support? Well, we’re just getting started really. First let’s go back to the deal where he claimed to have a theological degree he didn’t have - remember the context? Well, he apparently sees his study of the Christian religion a qualification to fight Islamic terrorists. Ummm… for some of us, that smacks of a scary tilt toward Christian Jihad… And I don’t just mean “us” as Democrats, non-Christians, or non-fundamentalists… Neocons themselves are a pretty diverse bunch, and while they tolerate the occasional Christian Zionist in their midst, there are lines that some of them won’t cross. And the mindset that we are on a mission from Jesus to defeat Islam is probably just such a line for some of them - especially the Jewish amongst them, who might not cherish the later results of a Christian Nationalist campaign.

But let’s get into some things not yet discussed…

Huckabee, as late as 1992 - after AIDS was pretty well understood to be a blood and body-fluid borne pathogen, and after even Reagan began to give lip service to a more enlightened approach to it - Suggested quarantining AIDS patients, identifying them exclusively as homosexuals whose lifestyles were “aberrant, unnatural, and sinful”. In 2007, given a chance to recant this horrid position on AIDS sufferers, Huckabee instead refused to, though he did try to muddle the facts about the position he took. Quoting from his original statement on AIDS:

If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.
It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.

In light of the extraordinary funds already being given for AIDS research, it does not seem that additional federal spending can be justified. An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor (,) Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research.

Certainly, this candidate’s populist rhetoric on health-care might woo people who care about it… but his wild-eyed rhetoric about health-care might just turn them right back off.

Wayne Dumond may have been the only politically motivated intervention in the parole process on Huckabee’s part that ended in two more murders, but it wasn’t the only politically motivated meddling Huckabee did in the parole process. Cronies got Mike’s help in getting off of some serious offenses. People who took exception to Bill Clinton’s pardoning bonanza may well do the same with the Huckster’s behavior.

Certainly there are a good number of women who don’t mind being told to graciously submit themselves to their husband’s decisions… but there are plenty who do mind that (and rightfully so), and not all of them vote Democrat.

“Strict Constructionist” is the term used to describe someone who wants to roll back case law and its interpretive function in the courts. Usually, they do not want to take it all the way back to the bare-bones Constitution as it was written and amended - just until abortion can be criminalized - or in some cases until abortion, contraception, and sodomy - or in some cases until all of the above plus segregation and Jim Crow can be criminalized without interference from the court system. The one thing they mostly agree on, however, is that the Constitution itself is a wonderful piece of work, and a fine founding document on which to base our statutory laws. What only a handful of them favor is turning it into a document to support a theocracy. Which, it turns out, isn’t so bad a thing, according to Huckabee.

So, if Huckabee isn’t a strict constructionist - so popular a position on the right - then what is he?

Well, this is where we leave the world of his record and have to follow the scent of his advocates & associates.

I told a friend on more than one occasion that Huckabee is well-spoken and charismatic, but if you scratch him, you find a scary case of nutty. Well, even if we don’t get into the case where he uses the Governor’s office to squelch the investigation into his son’s torture and killing of a dog, his extremely wierd views on how Jesus’ actions while being crucified reflect Jesus’ implied views on the death penalty, we’ve seen plenty already to suggest I am right in my assessment. But there is more.

Maybe the Huckster didn’t mean that all of the Constitution should be reshaped to reflect his twisted ideas about God’s law… maybe he just meant we should include an amendment or two making it easier to criminalize abortion? Maybe… But maybe he’s in bed with the Christian Reconstructionist movement.

Before I go on, the Christian Reconstructionist movement comes in two flavors. Both are distasteful to most religious and non-religious lovers of liberty, but one is somewhat more politically palatable. That one is the flavor that says that we need a renewal of culture, and an increased influence of religious “values” on government and legislation. The other says that the government is not valid - does not carry authority - unless it enforces the Biblical “laws of God”.

Let’s do seven degrees of Mike Huckabee, and see if we can get an idea what might be on those hard-drives that Huckabee had destroyed, or in those sermons that Huckabee won’t allow to be released…

Check out Andrew Sandlin. A sample:

Now is no time for apologetic apologetics. No time for a whiny and obsequious, “We just want a place at the table of ideas.” No time for, “But recent discoveries seem to confirm the historicity of the Exodus and Noah’s ark.” No time for, “Please trust Jesus; He’ll make you feel all better.” No time for, “This is a complex issue and good people disagree.”

People who disagree with the plain declarations of the Bible are not good.

Now is the time for daring. For high stakes gambles. For an uncompromising declaration of the authority Christ and His word.

We need to stand up boldly in pulpits, on courthouse steps, outside abortion clinics and declare to God-haters, “What you are doing is not lawful.” We need to pray public imprecations against the enemies of Christ and His Word-by name. We need to bombard the media with the message, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” We need to expose public sins of public God-haters publicly. We need to infiltrate and subvert for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ the present political system, the public school system, the media, the arts, and the apostate Christian church.

Which brand of Reconstructionist would you expect Sandlin to be?

And does he have any relation to Mike Huckabee? Well, Sandlin’s outfit is called the Center for Cultural Leadership. And who is the Senior Fellow in Public Policy and Political affairs at the CCL? Answer is Rod Martin. And guess who was Mike Huckabee’s Director of Policy Planning and Research as Governor of Arkansas? You guessed it - Rod Martin. Fluke?

I’ll save the drama & time of doing all the link-ups. Bill Gothard gets face time with Mike Huckabee. Bill Gothard’s organization… well… read about it in the link prior, complete with stories of investigated potential religious-based child abuse.

Two might be a coincidence - Three is a pattern. Meet Assemblies of God Pastor Joseph Fuiten, one of several Reconstructionist-oriented Assemblies pastors who are backing Huckabee, and who earn his favor. Read about his endorsement of holocaust-revisionism meant to justify a pogrom against American gays, and his group’s plans to de-nationalize and intern people who don’t conform to their brand of fundamentalism. Wonder why Mike Huckabee is so favored by this group, who would like to make the military more literally than not an army of “Christian Soldiers”.

Is there anyone left out there who doesn’t have due cause to worry about how Mike Huckabee made it this far in a campaign to be elected the most powerful single person in the world? I hope not.

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I want to mention that I didn’t do much of the leg-work for this piece. Most of the research was compiled by Perrspective Blog, and by DogEmperor, Troutfishing, and PastorDan at Street Prophets. It was not entirely through their efforts that I became aware of Huckabee’s shady underside, but they made the job of documenting the atrocities a lot easier!