Mike Huckabee claims he wants John McCain to win, yet he urges Republicans to win on the issues. These two propositions contradict each other.
All the Republicans have is demonization. We'll see a lot of it, no matter how much Huckabee auditions for the nice guy role.
Fox "News" is a blight upon the American media landscape. Could their reactionary politics be any better displayed by their slips of the tongue?
As it turns out, yes:
[Liz Trotta's] mea culpa followed that of former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas a week earlier after he made a similar crack at a gathering of the National Rifle Association.If Huckabee had said something about whitey, well, that wouldn't be so easily forgiven.
In other news, Fox News Channel announced today that it was hiring Mr. Huckabee as a contributor.
Imagine if a Democrat made an assassination joke about a Republican. The media would have a total heart attack meltdown. They wouldn't put "pretty benign" anywhere near the headline. Even the though would give them the vapors.
Huckabee, instrument of nightmare scenario 1, still wants to be veep.
Thursday morning, WROR played an old ad from Bob the Builder. It had a catch-phrase, "Yes, we can!" Man, is Obama ever in deep yogurt now.
Hillary has been quick to attack but also ran afoul of the cynical googlers. Yep, she has cribbed from Bill. (Or maybe he cribbed from her in the first place.)
Mike Huckabee has been playing "More than a Feeling" without permission, just to prove how cool he is. Or was in the 1970s. If I said he was playing to his bass, I'd be cribbing, too.
John McCain has a slogan up on his web site: "Ready to Lead on Day One." Wasn't that Hillary's slogan? No? McCain added "to lead", and that makes it different and all better? Nope, just IOKIYAR.
Oh, and back to Obama. Ted Kennedy called him, "Ready to be President on day one." Is that safe from the originality cops?
Seriously, can we stop this bullshit? It doesn't make anything better.
(Hat-tip 55-40 for the pointer to TPM.)
Setting: Interrogation room in the Seattle Police Headquarters.
"So, Huckabee, what were you doing on the night of December 12, 2000?"
"Detective, I told you, it was nearly eight years ago. How could I possibly remember that? What has that got to do with my police report?"
"Think back. It was an important day."
"I was probably Christmas shopping at the local Bible-believing book store. My opponent is trying to steal my caucus right out from under your nose."
"Any witnesses to this alibi? Or had they all been raptured?"
"I don't know about witnesses, Detective, but I expect to be taken when the Rapture comes down upon us. But what about the caucuses?"
"You ever heard of adverse possession, Reverend?"
"What kind of possession? I've never taken drugs in my life."
"Sure. You're not just another Bible-banger like Ted Haggard?"
"No, sir, just a good Christian come to report an election theft."
"What I'm saying to you, Huck - that your real name? - is that the Republicans established adverse possession over election returns, and the Supreme Court approved it in 2000."
"December 12th?"
"You got it buddy."
"So there's nothing you can do for me?"
"I could, but I don't like you, see? Stirring up trouble. I'm gonna send your fingerprints to Washington, and I'll bet we find a match. I got my eye on you, bub."
Just to get the vituperation out of the way up front: Scientology's empirical teachings are as ridiculous as those of many other religious traditions, Mike Huckabee's for example. Mitt Romney's, too. I'm not too keen on the whole virgin birth myth, either, nor on transubstantiation. Hindu cosmology is wacko. Islamic science used to be pretty good, though it has fallen on hard times for the past several hundred years and shows little sign of recovering - quite the contrary in fact.
Scientologists, Southern Baptists, Mormons, Catholics, Hindus, and Muslims are probably all evil or good in about the same proportions, which is to say in proportions that don't respect stated belief or lack of it.
I'm an atheist; as a group, we're no better morally than anyone else. Nor are we worse. We do tend to be better at distinguishing empirical fact from the made-up metaphysical bullshit that charismatic leaders can't seem to avoid, but even among us you'll find all sorts of believers in crystals, the Force, etc.
The strangest thing is what happens to the metaphysical bullshit once the charismatic leader is no longer around to make up metaphors and call them doctrine. His words harden into coprolitic dogma. So, because Jews thousands of years ago wrote about nature as they understood it then, fundamentalist Christians refuse to find any factual errors in a text plainly littered with them.
Really, though, it's a happy day when people hold a party to protest Scientology in such an entertaining way.
Tom Tomorrow perfectly captures the fundie, wealthy, and bully factions of the Republican Party, as represented by the three remaining candidates.
And, by the way, what was I thinking to consider McCain only a bully panderer, when he is clearly one of them. Maybe I was confused because he's a paleocon bully, not a neocon bully.
Click image for full cartoon in Salon.
John McCain just put a down payment on the nightmare scenario. The GOP standings are very clear, despite the maunderings of the media that the race is still up in the air:
I guess Kate Capshaw's character in Temple of Doom was right to faint when offered the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spoon monkey brains directly out of their skulls. Not that I needed much encouragement, but I'm striking brains off my list of potential edibles. At this point, here are the risks:
The disease bore no resemblance to mad cow disease.Except, it's not transmissible from human to human, it shows neurological symptoms, and it's associated with using brains for food, all true of BSE. True, the symptoms are not an invariable decline to dementia and death, but that's hardly "no resemblance". I'd like to know more about what the Minnesota Dept. of Health or the CDC did to rule out another prion-based disease.
Mike Huckabee is a raging fundie. Duh. He's the complete fundie wet dream - if fundies would admit to having those. He's a young earth creationist. As a bonus for the Republican base, this means he is very capable of believing claims about the world that are glaringly refuted by the actual world. He wants to amend the Constitution to conform to his God's law. As a Southern Baptist pastor, he thinks that women should prayerfully submit to their husbands' authority. He's a Confederate sympathizer who believes that, for instance, the country has no business telling people how to educate their children. No Brown v. Board of Education for this nullifier.
Why is that not perfect? Well, Huckabee has dissented from the One True Faith of the wealthies. He has raised taxes slightly to help poor people. That's why he's pushing the lyingly named Fair Tax, which beggars the middle class to help the wealthy add extra gates to their secure vacation home communities.
But more important, the wealthies are scared shitless (and since their shit don't stink, that's bad) by the thought of one of them in power. They'd rather have a triangulating, compromising Democrat in power and hamstring him (or her!) with campaign cash, private jets, and deftly applied, heavily lobbied resistance. This has worked for them in the past, and it's definitely the low risk strategy, especially with levellers like John Edwards almost dead at the hands of the corporate media. What hasn't been tried because of its sheer unpredictability is putting a pre-Enlightenment fundie at the helm.
Huckabee is fundie to the core. But he doesn't have the support of the wealthies. Is this the election in which the fundies throw off their chains and take the GOP away from their betters? He has a few bully credentials, but they're too mixed to bring him all the way to 50% plus 1.
I know what would happen if somebody comes to my state in Arkansas and tells us what to do, it doesn't matter what it is, tell us how to run our schools, tell us how to raise our kids, tell us what to do with our flag — you want to come tell us what to do with the flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole.These aren't even code words. These are out and out appeals to bigotry. Just in case we weren't listening, he said them twice in different locales.
Even less than it means to the Democrats...
Huckabee blunted Mitt Romney's early money-buys-name-recognition strategy. Mitt won't be running the table.
Huckabee, though, is still a big question mark. Ed Rollins only thinks he helped.
Mitt Romney still has money. I expect to see ads leaking over the border that tag Huckabee as an opportunist.
The three old fossils are still as viable as they were before. For Fred Thompson, it's probably a disappointment that he did too well to fade out of the race.
Duncan Hunter is still hopeless. He's probably crying that everyone stole his issue, but that's his face-saver for quitting.
Mike Huckabee wants to be a political Jackie Gleason, "Boom, Hillary, to Mars." Personally, I'd prefer to have grown-ups in charge, after eight years of the Bushist faux grown-ups. But Huckabee correctly assesses the maturity of the core Republican voters, many of whom never graduated emotionally from middle school.
And, of course, CNN calls Huckabee's juvenile taunt "witty". Not just a quip, but witty! I can't believe how debased our national conversation is.
Concluding that something science proves is wrong because it conflicts with the Bible is like looking at a mountain, looking at a map, and deciding the mountain is wrong because the map doesn't mention it.
So, Hillary says health care for all, and Mike Huckabee says take better care of yourselves, but the Globe titles the article:
Clinton, Huckabee champion healthcare at AARP eventAbout the only thing they agree on is that health is good. Oh, and they both showed up.
