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• Friday, December 28, 2007 06:52 PM

  Huckabee, the 2008 uncurious candidate

  Huckabee has few well developed views, particularly in foreign policy, and voting for him is gambling on a black box. It is not surprising that he would take an area he knows little about and stretch his response to vaguely try to connect it with a domestic agenda he is more familiar with. This immigration link to Pakistan's instability is just such a scenario:

  • Bush was considered an "empty vessel" from a foreign policy standpoint when he came into office in 2000, reportedly saying to Saudi Prince Bandar bin-Sultan: "I don't have the foggiest idea about what I think about foreign policy." After meetings with various advisors, he replaced this emptiness with a strong endorsement of neoconservative doctrine which he pursues with religious conviction to this day. Watching Huckabee harden so easily on numerous issues, including immigration, reminds me of George Bush in 2000.

  • Huckabee has been dangerously out of the loop on current events, calling into question the quality of his advisors and his intellectual curiosity. Huckabee did not know about the NIE report on Iran's nuclear aspirations until at least 24 hours after it was released, for example, and apparently did not know yesterday that the state of emergency had been lifted by Musharraf in Pakistan several weeks prior, commenting on Bhutto's assassination that the U.S. should consider: "...what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continued in Pakistan"

  • Huckabee mirrors Bush in the anti-science agenda, claiming religious objections to stem cell research and emergency contraception, although Politico reported today that he has taken $52K in speaking fees from Novo Nordisk, firm that does stem cell research. Such a position implies that he would be open to a continuation of the pro-business agenda of the Bush years, which I would differentiate entirely from a free market agenda that would be compatible with a candidate truly in pursuit of smaller government

  • There is something darker going on in Huckabee's odd attempts at humor, as St. John pointed out in the first reply to this article. I also wrote about this in a Greenwald column a few days ago, but saw no responses. While at a press photo event in Iowa to showcase his hunting prowess, Huckabee pointed at three dead pheasants at his feet and said for the cameras: "These three birds all said they would not vote for me on caucus night. You see what happened to them. It’s very positive. You vote for me, you live… you don’t, hmm… there you go"

  The most ominous parallel between Bush and Huckabee is the shell of religious conviction that they use to protect and advance their agenda. In mid-November Huckabee stated that there was a biblical responsibility to address global warming. While the outcome may suit some, by wrapping the policy in religious terms it closes the door to debate on the merits since any attack on the policy is necessarily an attack on someone's religious convictions. I'm hopeful that many voters have had quite enough of religion and "patriotism" used as tactics to silence debate.

  —bostonMA Read bostonMA's other letters
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