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Huckabee on "Meet the Press"
CBS News ^
| 12/30/20007
| Nancy Cords
Posted on 12/30/2007 12:02:17 PM PST by wastedpotential
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was introduced on NBC's "Meet the Press" with a bit of bad news. A new MSNBC poll finds him back in second place in Iowa behind Mitt Romney. “Has Mitt Romney said anything that’s been untrue about you?” Tim Russert asked. Huckabee replied half-jokingly, “How long do we have on this program today?”
Huckabee listed the areas where he felt Romney’s ads had distorted his record, and argued that Romney “left his roads a mess in Massachusetts” and raised taxes by half a million. “Fees,” Russert interjected. Huckabee asserted that raising fees had the same effect on the wallet as raising a tax.
Russert point out that some conservative groups had given Huckabee a D or F when it came to raising taxes. Huckabee said he only raised taxes for things that were crucial, like roads and schools. “That’s what being a governor is about in some cases,” Huckabee replied, and pointed out that he also lowered some taxes. “We untaxed poor people and gave them a shot of making it up the economic ladder…I’m proud of the fact that we raised teacher pay.”
Russert asked if elections in Pakistan should be postponed. Huckabee declined to take a position, saying “that’s their decision to make….I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to weigh in on whether they should have elections in their own country.” On whether it was worth destabilizing Musharraf’s government to, as Huckabee has proposed in the past, go after al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan: “The number one job of the US president is to protect this country. Whatever we must do to protect our sovereignty from those whose ideologies are so extreme…yes sir, you better believe I would do whatever is necessary.”
He passed Russert’s pop quiz on Pakistan, correctly answering “Sunni” when asked whether the country was predominantly Shia or Sunni. When Russert read aloud an excerpt from a Washington Post editorial accusing Huckabee of “astonishing senselessness” for tying the events in Pakistan to immigration fears here at home, Huckabee made a joke to the effect of, “but Tim, how do they really feel?” and reiterated his argument that the destabilizing events in Pakistan should highlight the fact that terrorists from that region of the world could come across our porous southern border with a dirty bomb in a suitcase.
Huckabee was asked to back up his now infamous description of the Bush Administration’s “arrogant bunker mentality.” He trotted out his typical example, of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ignoring the advice of his military commanders that the Iraq invasion would require 400,000 troops. “That’s it?” Russert asked. “I think at times we have given foreign countries the impression you’re either for us 100 percent, or for us 100 percent,” Huckabee offered. He said a president should try to keep the bridges of communication open because a country that’s against you today might be with you tomorrow on another issue – no two countries agree on everything.
On immigration: Huckabee was asked how his argument that the children of illegal immigrants shouldn’t be punished for their parents’ mistakes squares with his new immigration plan calling for illegals to be sent home. What about their kids, who are American citizens -- what happens to them, Russert wanted to know. They go with their parents, Huckabee replied. After the show, when asked by reporters how that doesn’t punish a child, Huckabee asserted, “Why is it punishing a child? To let them be with their parents?” He argued that being with their parents is more important than what country they live in.
Russert asked Huckabee about his past statement that the economy would collapse if all illegal immigrants went home. “I think it would be very, very difficult to do construction and agriculture without them,” Huckabee conceded. So what happens if, as your plan suggests, all 15 million go home? “All of them aren’t going to go back on the same day,” Huckabee replied, and argued that the borders should be sealed so a situation like this does not arise in the first place. “Let’s not forget that our federal government has made a mess of this,” he said. “As a governor, I had to deal with their mess.”
The discussion turned to religion: specifically, the religious overtones of his ads in Iowa and his comment to a Baptist convention in 1998 that we should “answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.” “Where does this leave the non-Christians?” Russert wanted to know. Huckabee said he was interested in being president, not a religious leader. “I have more executive experience running a government than being a pastor,” he pointed out. “I didn’t ever have a bill replacing the dome of the capitol with a steeple. We didn’t have tent revivals” on the grounds of the capitol. “But I don’t want to pretend” that faith isn’t important, he went on. He said his faith has shaped his beliefs on important issues, but “I’ve never tried to rewrite science textbooks, I’ve never tried to impose Christian doctrinaire,” he later added.
Huckabee was asked about this line from his book Kids Who Kill from 1998: "It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.” Does he really consider homosexuality to be equivalent to these other practices? “Oh, of course not,” he replied, though “all of these are deviations from what has been the traditional concept of marriage.” Millions of Americans are homosexuals, Russert noted, wondering whether Huckabee considered them aberrant and unnatural and if he thought people were born gay or became gay. “People who are gay say they’re born that way,” Huckabee mused, but added that people have a choice about how they act.
The last topic tackled was abortion. “You said you would ban abortion,” Russert noted, as an example of how Huckabee’s faith might influence his politics. “But that’s not because I’m a Christian. That’s because I’m an American,” Huckabee countered. “If I value your life and respect it because it has dignity and is human…that’s why we go after the 12 year old who is lost in the woods,” he argued. “I like it that in this country we treat each other with that sense of equality.” What about people who don’t believe life starts at conception? “I respect it as a view but I don’t think it has biological credibility.” He said he considered women who had abortions to be victims, not criminals, and argued it was a violation of the Hippocratic oath “if you suction out the pieces of an unborn child.” If abortion were a crime, how should a doctor who performs them be punished? “I don’t know if you’d put him in prison,” but he should be sanctioned in some way, Huckabee asserted.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; elections; huckabee; iowa; mtp; romney; taxhikemike
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To: redgirlinabluestate
This is getting down to the wire and I am glad I am not in Iowa. The decision is not as easy as it looks except that I know I would not vote for Mr. Huckabee or Mr. Paul. All of the others have some serious reasons for voting for them but unfortunately they all have flaws.
Where do we find a politician, a republican politician who does not have flaws.
When we find him what will the mainstream media do to kill him off?
If I had to vote I would probably be able to make a decision but I’m not sure I wouldn’t second guess it tomorrow. I can look at that two ways of course, one is that they are all good and the other is that they all have flaws. Whomever wins I hope he can win the general, I think they would all be better than the democratic alternative.
21
posted on
12/30/2007 1:00:27 PM PST
by
JAKraig
(Joseph Kraig)
To: RayBob
Just like Elian? Has nothing to do with the current illegal discussion and is a "Red Herring".
22
posted on
12/30/2007 1:02:09 PM PST
by
org.whodat
(What's the difference between a Democrat and a republican????)
To: wastedpotential
How about one more Real Men of Genius post? Let me buy you a beer.
23
posted on
12/30/2007 1:03:19 PM PST
by
Eric Blair 2084
(Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
To: Eric Blair 2084
As long as it is in a no-smoking section :)
24
posted on
12/30/2007 1:06:30 PM PST
by
wastedpotential
(A Reagan Bush conservative from OH and ..... an unashamed Huckabee supporter)
To: wastedpotential
I watched it and Mr. Potato Head (Russert) really mashed up Der Huckmeister.
25
posted on
12/30/2007 1:07:44 PM PST
by
NeoCaveman
(If higher cigarette taxes discourage smoking, what...do higher Income Taxes discourage? - massgopguy)
To: redgirlinabluestate
Hunter is going nowhere, which leaves Thompson as the most conservative candidate. Normally, I’d think of him a middle-left. Says a lot about our slate of candidates.
26
posted on
12/30/2007 1:10:51 PM PST
by
Mr Rogers
(Huckabee - the Republican John Edwards)
To: Cowboy Bob
I agree with you. Children should go with their parents.
To: redgirlinabluestate
28
posted on
12/30/2007 1:13:09 PM PST
by
Maelstorm
(Check out www.Fredrepublic.com)
To: MNJohnnie
Would someone explain to the Huckster and his acolytes that a President cannot simply decree Abortion illegal. That sounds like a message that some Freepers should hear. At this point the emphasis should be on changing minds, not changing laws.
29
posted on
12/30/2007 1:15:18 PM PST
by
TChad
To: detective
Post #9 well said, couldn’t agree more.
To: awakened
A president doesn’t HAVE to decree abortion illegal. Murder is already decreed illegal. Then why aren't the Abortionists in jail?
31
posted on
12/30/2007 1:20:29 PM PST
by
MNJohnnie
(Hillary Clinton has never done one thing right. She thinks that qualifies her to be President?)
To: wastedpotential
You can hang out with Huck in the no smoking section. I’ll be with the smokers in the smoking section. I love the smell of tobacco smoke...it reminds me of freedom.
32
posted on
12/30/2007 1:20:47 PM PST
by
Eric Blair 2084
(Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
To: Cowboy Bob
That’s Huck’s position today. It doesn’t match his record or his past rhetoric. Don’t fall for it.
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/11/huckabee_im_against_illegal_immigration_but_im_not_a_lunatic_about_it.php
Nov. 23, 2007
A pretty compelling interview with Mike Huckabee about immigration. In it, Huckabee was asked about charges from rivals that he’s soft on immigration because he supported the children of illegal immigrants being eligible for scholarships and backed free prenatal care for illegal immigrants in need of it.
Huckabee’s response:
“We penalize law-breakers. We don’t penalize their children for something they can’t help.
“If a child is gasping for air, asthmatic, and he’s on the hospital steps, what do the other candidates suggest we do, let him sit there and gasp until he doesn’t have any air left and he dies? If a child comes to our school — and our law, by the way, in most of our states, mine certainly says you’ve got to educate a child if he’s of child age — what do you, break your own law and say, `No, you can’t come in the schoolhouse door’?
“No, you don’t do that. What you do is you elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed: At the border. But if your government at the federal government is so incompetent that it fails to secure the border, you don’t then grind your heel into the face of a 6-year-old child over it. That’s not what this country does. We’re a better country than that.”
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/11/29/huckabee
33
posted on
12/30/2007 1:24:03 PM PST
by
AuntB
(" It takes more than walking across the border to be an American." Duncan Hunter)
To: wastedpotential
Huckabee said he only raised taxes for things that were crucial, like roads and schools. Then you cut spending on less crucial projects to pay for it.
At least, that's what you do if you aren't a leftist.
34
posted on
12/30/2007 1:24:56 PM PST
by
steve-b
(Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. --RAH)
To: MNJohnnie; awakened
C’mon, awakened. Surely you’re not saying that abortion is now illegal everywhere in America.
Because all MNJohnnie is saying is that the President of the United States doesn’t have the power to MAKE abortion illegal everywhere in America.
You’re going to need a constitutional amendment for that, and that involves a whole HECK of a lot of people. And, earth-to-awakened: it ain’t agonna happen.
Better to do what Fred wants to do, overturn Roe v. Wade and let the states that have the power to outlaw it do so. And then we can all go forward from there.
As it is, right now, we are at an impasse, with people like you saying “all or nothing” and the nation answering back: “ok, nothing”.
Is that the way you like it? You LIKE the status quo?
35
posted on
12/30/2007 1:33:03 PM PST
by
samtheman
(Fred Thompson '08)
To: wastedpotential
“Has Mitt Romney said anything that’s been untrue about you?” Tim Russert asked.I'm still waiting for The Huckmiester's answer...
To: redgirlinabluestate
I disagreed with the McCain Feingold bill but to say he has a very centrist record is not just misleading but just not true.
He is solidly pro-life and his voting record shows it.
Opposes amnesty in any form. (Jun 2007)
Voted YES on limit welfare for immigrants. (Jun 1997)
As for climate change I don’t think you will find anyone who speaks so skeptically outside this forum. You most certainly won’t find either Huckabee or Romney doing so.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTQzYWY1MGM5NTkyZTM2YWVlMDMzMDlhMzQwNThhNDU=
I posted his record Fred is a premier conservative. He is his own man. It appears that is what you don’t like about him. I’d vote for McCain before Romney or Huckabee but thankfully that isn’t an issue. I’m voting for a leader with a record that is unquestionable conservative both socially and fiscally. He did not just discover his conservative roots like Romney.
Since Mitt is your horse in the race I imagine we could go back in time and figure out what his positions were before he began running for President. Tell me did he or did he not march with Martin Luther King Jr? ;-)
37
posted on
12/30/2007 1:37:31 PM PST
by
Maelstorm
(Check out www.Fredrepublic.com)
To: Maelstorm
Tell me did he or did he not march with Martin Luther King Jr? ;-)
_______________________________________________________
I thought it was his dad who was supposed to have marched with King
38
posted on
12/30/2007 1:42:40 PM PST
by
JAKraig
(Joseph Kraig)
To: JAKraig
39
posted on
12/30/2007 1:44:32 PM PST
by
Maelstorm
(Check out www.Fredrepublic.com)
To: Maelstorm
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