Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. What DAY is it?
This refers not to Geico’s camel commercial about hump day but to Mike Huckabee, the guitar-playing former Baptist preacher who has taken to criticizing others’ religious beliefs all the time, not just on Sunday.
We are assessing former Arkansas governor Huckabee in our quest for a qualified GOP presidential nominee. Huckabee has given up his lucrative Fox show, which enabled him to build a sumptuous Florida water-front estate in addition to his Arkansas home. He has tweeted 4,196 times! He has written a book called “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy.”
On “Fox and Friends” the other day he lit into President Barack Obama: “Everything he does is against what Christians stand for, and he’s against the Jews in Israel. The one group of people that can know they have his undying, unfailing support would be the Muslim community. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the radical Muslim community or the more moderate Muslim community.”
It’s one thing to criticize the president’s artless remarks about the Crusades and Christian violence centuries ago. Obama is correct that great evil was perpetrated in the name of Christianity hundreds of years ago. Yet for Obama to compare that and Christian support of slavery to the horrors that the Islamic State is perpetrating today was stupid in light of today’s politics.
But it’s quite another thing for a man like Huckabee who says he wants to be president and a statesman to charge the president of the United States with acting willfully against Christians and Jews in favor of radical Islamists. That is false and irresponsible.
We got to know and like Huckabee for his sense of humor, his battle to lose weight and what seemed to be his straight-shooting honesty. Were we misled?
Huckabee’s spewing of nonsense about Obama indicates the TV talk show host apparently is not sincere about running to be president but may be merely attempting to further his career. That is, his career portraying a right-wing huckster who will get an even bigger salary out of Fox or another network down the road.
The country will not elect a Huckabee who spreads hyperbolic falsehoods and does not live up to the Christian principles he says he espouses. Obama is legitimately vulnerable to a great deal of criticism on a great many issues but is certainly no supporter of radicalism or terrorism.
On the same day Huckabee’s self-censor button failed, he ridiculed Obama’s contention that climate change is future earth’s most dangerous threat. “I assure you that a beheading is much worse than a sunburn,” Huckabee said. Cute.
Our nation is polarized beyond workability. We don’t debate; we yell and vilify. If someone is not with us, they’re not only against us but rotten to the core.
Hence, the disappointment with Huckabee. He might have wooed us with music and gentle words but blew it.
Imagine the Republican debates! As in 2012, candidates will shred each other into unrecognizable pieces. We can only imagine the terrible things Huckabee will conjure up about the others who will be on the stage. If he gets that far.
Sadly, our search for a GOP standard bearer continues.
About the Author
