Posted on 11/23/2007 4:54:14 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Mike Huckabee's most vigorous and able nemesis in Arkansas is the unabashedly liberal and uncommonly activist editor of the weekly free tabloid in Little Rock.
I've been knowing and admiring Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times for 30 years, since we were lads breaking in at the late, lamented Arkansas Gazette. He went to bat with higher-ups to make me a columnist. Then, when I up and quit one day, they made him the columnist. There wasn't any drop-off that I could tell, and I'm being kind to myself.
He's one of the smartest people I know. He's one of the most blustery. He's one of the most passionate. He's one of the most partisan.
I'm over here growing steadily less certain of things. Max seems to have come out of the womb certain and to have become more convinced ever since. He is capable of uncompromising disdain, most prominently toward the Huckster and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which killed his beloved paper.
Max and his wife, Ellen, the judge, are old friends of Bill and Hillary. Ellen and Hillary were in college together. That's just something we need to put out there.
Max has been brooding and stewing, not so much that Huckabee has risen to national prominence, since he probably figures Huckabee is about what the Republicans deserve, but that he's done it by charming many national reporters who haven't bothered asking anyone in Arkansas about the fatally flawed essence of this man.
So it happened that Salon, the popular liberal on-line magazine, invited Max to write something. Max did. It was his sassiest and brassiest and best. I invite you to read it at www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/13/huckabee.
Brantley acknowledges good and progressive elements of Huckabee's record. But then those personal failings get laid out - Huckabee's setting up a nonprofit organization to supplement his lieutenant governor's salary with anonymous donations; Huckabee's using the Governor's Mansion account for personal groceries; Huckabee's acceptance of gifts galore; Huckabee's wanting castrated rapist Wayne Dumond freed because of misplaced compassion and a paranoid distrust of all things having to do with Clinton, then not owning up to it; Mike and Janet's setting up a gift registry for themselves as they prepared to set up housekeeping post-Governor's Mansion.
My take always has been that Huckabee is altogether more tacky than corrupt. Much of what he pulled as governor and lieutenant governor was permitted by law and rule, but represented a sense of entitlement that people of more refined sensibilities would eschew.
What most separates Huckabee is his petulance and huffiness and hyperbolic squealing when he gets caught or challenged.
I happen to have received benefit of Huckabee's early thinking on these matters. This occurred either while he was lieutenant governor, or, more specifically, during that transition when he was preparing to replace Jim Guy Tucker.
He told me that ethics cannot be regulated by government and that procedures set up presuming to do so merely invite harassment by partisan political enemies. He thinks morality is your own business, yours and God's, and that politically appointed bureaucrats and partisan newspapermen can't possibly worm themselves credibly into that relationship.
My conclusion is that Huckabee has good qualities and deplorable ones. The good ones commend him for this national prominence, but the deplorable ones ought to disqualify him for the presidency.
The last person in whom I saw such contradiction and complexity went on to a presidency that showcased those very contradictions and complexities.
Am I equating the sins of these sons of Hope? I'll let a higher power compile those rankings. I'm saying that, politically, they inevitably amount to a kind of wash.
It's not illegal to receive oral sex from an intern, though it amounted to a kind of sexual abuse in a presidential case. It was not illegal, though perhaps it ought to have been, to be a governor letting a rich guy who is a personal friend outfit you in good suits.
What you choose to overlook and abhor depends on which partisan way you lean. You can disregard Mark Rich's pardon and obsess on Wayne Dumond's parole. Or the other way around.
These two words are mutually exclusive.
Talk about deja vu all over again.
I heard the Huck preach during the late Dr Rogers illness at Bellevue Baptist. Good preacher, but not president material IMO.
I think it is nice that this FOB speaks out to tell the country about Huckabee. I would expect no less of good old friend of Bill and Hill. I wish he has spoken out about Slick Willy when it mattered. I expect to hear much more from these Arkansas Clinton suck ups.
So, the Huckster had his intestines taken out, and then went and wrote a book about exercise and good eating as a way to lose weight and then had his fridge filled.
Awesome. He might make it he’s so sleazy.
Last night some DNC creep was on Fox news saying how the whole Republican field was evil and abhorrent, except Huckabee, who she claimed was an honest and good alternative.
The demons and leftists want us to run Huckabee. They know the American public will never elect another corrupt Arkansas governor as president. And they know the American public will never elect a person named Huckabee as president.
They are doubly confident that if we are stupid enough to nominate a huckster named Huckabee, Hillary place as lord and master of our lives is assured.
Let’s break it down a bit.
There is the politician himself.
There is the politician they say they are, but aren’t.
There is the politician that their supporters wish to imagine they are, but arn’t.
A lot of political arguments, even here on FR, is about the second and third.
Ah but I keep reading he preaches a good sermon. I do not dare asked anybody that praises his preaching skills, what exactly he preaches, because it is just not acceptable to question a man from God.
It is considered offensive to question that worldly come to Jesus preacher that anointed the Clintons and told his people what a good leader Hillry would make.
He can't even spell it.
ping
Huckabee promotes 'open door' policy at LULAC convention
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005
By Wesley Brown
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK - In a impassioned speech before hundreds of influential Hispanic civil rights leaders from across the nation, Gov. Mike Huckabee told a captive audience Wednesday that America is great because it has always opened it doors up to people seeking a better way of life.
"I would hope that no matter who we are, or where we are from, that America should always be a place that opens its arms, opens it heart, opens its spirit to people who come because they want the best for their families ...," Huckabee said as the largely Hispanic audience gave him a standing ovation.
Huckabee was the keynote speaker, along with Tyson Foods Inc. Chairman and CEO John Tyson, at a noon luncheon of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which is holding its 76th annual convention in Little Rock.
About 10,000 political, community and business leaders, along with exhibitors and speakers are in Little Rock attending the convention at the Statehouse Convention Center. The convention started Monday and runs through Saturday.
Although he never actually talked about the U.S. or Arkansas immigration policy, Huckabee made it very clear where he stood on the issue. In his opening remarks, he said the nation will need to address the concerns of the Hispanic community because of its growing influence and population base.
He told the LULAC delegates that their presence in the state's capital city was very important because Arkansas has one of the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the nation. "Your gathering is so very significant for our state," Huckabee said. "We are delighted to have you."
Despite several light moments, Huckabee did not stray away from several controversial issues that made him a target of criticism during the recently ended 85th General Assembly. He said Arkansas needs to make the transition from a traditional Southern state to one that recognizes and cherishes diversity "in culture, in language and in population."
"This is an issue that is going to require extraordinary efforts on both sides of the border, particularly those coming from Mexico," Huckabee said of verifying the status of illegal aliens. "But I am confident that our government will recognize that we should accommodate people who wish to provide the best opportunities for their families (and) employers so that we can make sure our economy has the necessary work force."
During the legislation session, Huckabee criticized an immigration bill by Republican senators Jim Holt of Springdale and Denny Altes of Fort Smith as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life. Senate Bill 206, which died in the Senate, would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote and also force state agencies to report suspected cases of people living in the country illegally. Holt, R-Springdale, replied later to Huckabee's comments that Christian charity does not include turning a blind eye to lawbreaking.
Funny how that works. People really do judge based on how a person's name sounds. Sometimes it seems people perform up to or down to their name. If Gretzky had somehow been named Huckabee, would there ever have been a Great Huckabee? Somehow I doubt it.
“He went to bat with higher-ups to make me a columnist.
He can’t even spell it.”
I guess I missed that. How do YOU spell “columnist”?
http://surname-histories.suite101.com/article.cfm/with_leaders_the_name_counts
Sixteen presidents have last names ending in n, and numerous world leaders have too; and musicians and sports figures. But not so many news anchors, in fact only one.
Giving an edge to Thompson, Richardson, and Clinton...and Biden!
In this case, C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-T.
I love explaining my jokes.
Got it. It’s still early here in the Left Coast. Happy Leftovers Day!
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