Letters to the Editor
-
Nice Try Huck
He doesn't really want people digging into the "real stories". Stories like his refusal to cut the sales tax on groceries (accomplished by the Dem governor who followed him), stories like him putting pressure on Parole Board members to get them to let a convicted rapist free who later raped and killed a woman in a neighboring state (Google "Wayne Dumond").
That "tabloid" he refers to did a good job of setting him straight a few times. And they're still at it.
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=6da3ec0c-3022-460b-bb93-35056b367425
-
I'll let Patti Smith say it for me:
"Jesus died for sombody's sin but not mine...My sins are my own. The belong to me. Me."
Anyone who pointed a gun at an animal, pulled the trigger and said angels carried his bullet to the deer is not in complete control of their mental facilities in my book. Let him go speak in tongues, handel snakes and praise Jesus in some backwater shithole. We don't need that governing the nation.
-
Doesn't he get enough coverage in the MSM?
This interview turned my stomach. Just what we need, another fundie in the White House.
-
Seems like a nice guy.
Too bad he's such a religious lunatic.
Next....
-
Can lightening strike the same place twice?
Personable, down home type Governor of Arkansas who plays a musical instrument and knows how to talk good ole boy.
Do not underestimate this man. The religious right ain't dead yet.
-
Ugh, vomit
I actually had to STOP reading this interview on page 2... something about "Well, let's remember that all law establishes morality. That's what law does. The law of speeding is saying that it's immoral to go at 85 miles an hour." made my head turn.
Why don't we just impose Sharia law like the good ol boys down in the Saudi? Not only should women not have abortions, they shouldn't drive either! It's immoral! The bible/koran/reptilian overlords say so!
Seriously -- vomit. If it is the duty of the federal govt to impose their morality on others, lets have a nationwide vote on abortion. There was recently an article on the NYT about how many of the people who talk tough about abortion in public often have had abortions themselves, and that when it comes down to the privacy of a polling booth, the right to a safe, legal abortion wins hands down. So, if Huckabee thinks that its immoral, lets see what the whole country really thinks, in a truly annoymous poll.
And what's with politicians inability to tell the difference between the "morning after pill" and RU486. Note to idiots: one PREVENTS fertilization and implantion (much like normal birth control, or even a condom), one aborts a fertilized fetus. They are not the same thing, and if one truly believes that "life begins at conception" they should certinally not be confused, as one merely prevents conception. It really gets my goat when the media and pollies tie the two together as though they were the same thing.
-
Attention! Attention!
Rudy is confident he'll get the nomination and figures that Mike Huckabee will be happy to put down his bass guitar and play second fiddle on the GOP ticket. Mr. "Night-Mayor" knows that in the general he'd need someone with bona fide Christian conservative authenticity to prop him up. Huckabee fits the bill.
But, I think Rudy is going to be a colossal flameout. It's just a matter of time and exposure.
Most people aren't paying any attention to this horse race right now.
Huckabee? Is that a new brand of jam?
-
The Boys in the Back Room are Worried
And so am I. The prospect of anyone but Ron Paul winning the Republican nomination gives me the creeps (and I am a Republican) but Huckabee is a very special kind of creep. While Ghoulie is just as weird as he seems, Huckabee has this unnerving ability to make lunacy almost sound like it makes sense. God deliver us from this man of the cloth. Huckabee may well be the most dangerous of a bunch who are mostly out of touch with not only reality but even fantasy. This article and the interview really made me queasy. From the notion that the Fed must dictate morality to the idea that morality must be legislated, to his "science" regarding what constitutes life, there is something wrong far above and beyond what is probably obvious to most of the Salon readership.
Someone has already said, here, not to underestimate this man. I think that is sound advice. There is something in him that resonates with something I recognize well from my southern upbringing, and it is a kind of gothic "Say anything with authority and it will fly." It may fly in the face of reason, but it will fly. I've seen it done much more sloppily in the last two Presidential election campaigns. Huckabee is more smooth, superficially innocuous while saying the most outrageous things imaginable.
We gotta swat this fly -- well, we just can't afford to allow any Republican (again, with the possible exception of Ron Paul) from gaining any traction, developing any credibility, beyond the third of the country who will swallow anything. I'm just afraid this guy has something of a sinister gift. The others are largely transparent. Huckabee is something else. I'm not quite sure what, but it needs to be smothered in its cradle.
-
@AJ Calhoun -- Ron Paul is a scary dude, too! Paul is whacko!
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1996_1343749
Paper: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Date: THU 05/23/1996
Section: A
Page: 33
Edition: 3 STAR
CAMPAIGN '96/U.S. HOUSE/Newsletter excerpts offer ammunition to Paul's opponent/GOP hopeful quoted on race, crime
By ALAN BERNSTEIN, Houston Chronicle Political Writer Staff
Texas congressional candidate Ron Paul's 1992 political newsletter highlighted portrayals of blacks as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about top political issues.
Under the headline of ""Terrorist Update," for instance, Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, ""If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of ""current events and statistical reports of the time."
Selected writings by Paul were distributed Wednesday by the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Austin lawyer Charles ""Lefty" Morris.
Morris said many of Paul's views are ""out there on the fringe" and that his commentaries will be judged by voters in the November general elections.
Paul said allegations about his writings amounted to name-calling by the Democrats and that his opponents should focus instead on how to shrink government spending and reform welfare.
Morris and Paul are seeking the 14th Congressional District seat held by Greg Laughlin of West Columbia. Laughlin lost the Republican primary to Paul, a former congressman and the Libertarian Party's 1988 presidential candidate.
Paul, writing in his independent political newsletter in 1992, reported about unspecified surveys of blacks.
""Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action," Paul wrote.
Paul continued that politically sensible blacks are outnumbered ""as decent people." Citing reports that 85 percent of all black men in the District of Columbia are arrested, Paul wrote:
""Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal," Paul said.
Paul also wrote that although ""we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."
A campaign spokesman for Paul said statements about the fear of black males mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has decried the spread of urban crime.
Paul continues to write the newsletter for an undisclosed number of subscribers, the spokesman said.
Writing in the same 1992 edition, Paul expressed the popular idea that government should lower the age at which accused juvenile criminals can be prosecuted as adults.
He added, ""We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
Paul also asserted that ""complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.
""What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote.
In later newsletters, Paul aimed criticism at the Israeli government's U.S. lobbying efforts and reported allegations that President Clinton used cocaine and fathered illegitimate children.
Stating that lobbying groups who seek special favors and handouts are evil, Paul wrote, ""By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government" and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism.
Relaying a rumor that Clinton was a longtime cocaine user, Paul wrote in 1994 that the speculation ""would explain certain mysteries" about the president's scratchy voice and insomnia.
""None of this is conclusive, of course, but it sure is interesting," he said.