Honor, Duty, Country: Huckabee

David Weigel | September 7, 2007

Speaking of lightweight-but-likeable presidential candidates, Justin Raimondo takes another whack at Mike Huckabee over the former governor's tiff with Ron Paul. The conventional wisdom is that Huckabee won the exchange: Pollster Frank Luntz said Huckabee sounded principled. Here's what we're talking about:

Here's Raimondo, taking special exception to Huckabee's "you break it you buy it" metaphor.

I'm sure the Iraqi people would be very interested to learn that they have been bought: does that mean they'll all get green cards and engraved invitations to emigrate once we leave?
...
Notice that there are few, if any, facts... Just a cute little anecdote about him and his mom, and, furthermore, one that we have heard before, which simulates the warm fuzziness of folksy wisdom and yet has no real content. A personal anecdote and a rather odd analogy – comparing a country of 30 million living persons, with a history that predates the dawn of civilization, to an item sitting on a shelf in a store, an object to be examined, priced, bought, and sold, says more about the wrongness of this war of conquest, and more eloquently, than any of its critics have so far managed. Honor – is there any honor in this war? Most Americans think the cost of this conflict isn't worth it – that it was a mistake to go in, and it's a mistake to stay in. That's what Ron Paul believes, too, but not the Huckster, who appeals to the heart, not the head, and who's selling the "surge" and the war aims of this administration with an emotional demagoguery that belies his mild persona.

I see what Raimondo's getting at, but it's useless. Huckabee is the Colbert Nation candidate: He thinks with the brain in his gut.

Comments

thoreau|9.7.07 @ 4:35PM|#

lightweight-but-likeable

the brain in his gut

Given his much-discussed weight loss, I find these remarks especially funny!

|9.7.07 @ 4:43PM|#

"""Here's Raimondo, taking special exception to Huckabee's "you break it you buy it" metaphor."""

Wasn't that Colin Powell's metaphor?

|9.7.07 @ 4:47PM|#

honor
does
not
win
wars

askJapan

sry,spacebar=busted

|9.7.07 @ 4:52PM|#

Huckabee replied loudly, "Even if we lose elections, we should not lose our honor."

RP: Sir! I guarantee you that with your policy we will lose both!

Well, a boy can dream, right?

Fluffy|9.7.07 @ 4:55PM|#

Wait a second - the United States has behaved HONORABLY in the War on Terror?

All those honorable renditions.

All those honorable secret prisons.

The honorable way we dispensed with habeus corpus.

The honorable way we invaded a nation that wasn't a threat to us.

Those highly honorable pictures from Abu Ghraib.

Why not put a sign at the entrance to Guantanamo that says "Arbeit Macht Honorable"? Yeah, that's the ticket.

You can't lose what you don't have, Huckaboob. And the Bush administration took our national honor hostage, put a sensory deprivation hood over its head, forced it into a naked pyramid, and then waterboarded it a long time back.

|9.7.07 @ 4:57PM|#

I would have to say the Dr. Paul gaffed a little when he talked about how the GOP is losing elections. It was a good appeal to the primary delegates, but...

That tyrannical prick Huckabee is more clever than I thought; he turned it right around on Paul, and strengthened his "I'm not your average politician" shtick.

I will have to say that I've been hearing a little more about Paul lately from, well, less enlightened sources. As a sole libertarian in a politically diverse circle of friends, I was given hope when asked today about Paul.

Can you say momentum?

|9.7.07 @ 5:00PM|#

And the Bush administration took our national honor hostage, put a sensory deprivation hood over its head, forced it into a naked pyramid, and then waterboarded it a long time back.

And now, for the winner of the Analogy too long to read on a Friday Afternoon Award...

|9.7.07 @ 5:10PM|#

Fluffy, I think they believe it's honorable to act like all previous tyrants we fought, when we are fighting tyrants. What amazes me is how many so called rule of law conservatives have bought into it.

Fluffy|9.7.07 @ 5:19PM|#

I think you're right, Vic.

Silly me, I thought "honor" required one to:

1. Tell the truth even when it went against your interest,

2. Treat helpless prisoners and noncombatants with dignity and kindness.

|9.7.07 @ 5:24PM|#

Come on, that's so pre 9/11!

But it brings me to an interesting question.

When did honor abandon John Wayne?

|9.7.07 @ 5:25PM|#

Or should I have said the John Wayne generation.

|9.7.07 @ 5:27PM|#

I think it's fitting that Ron got booed when stating he got his marching orders formt he constitution. That's the kind of thing that makes folks uncomfortablely reexamine their beliefs and feelings.

|9.7.07 @ 5:28PM|#

Cheney said we have to move to the dark side.

So if two dark sides are fighting, what's the good side doing?

All this is really elementary, it's sad for America when only Ron Paul gets it.

rho|9.7.07 @ 5:30PM|#

Here "honor" == "winning".

The calculus used to arrive at this is an exercise left to the readers.

|9.7.07 @ 5:33PM|#

"" That's the kind of thing that makes folks uncomfortablely reexamine their beliefs and feelings.""

I think you give them too much credit. I believe most people think the Constitution is an outdated document not worthy of reference.

Anyone remember the indian shedding a tear because someone was littering at the end of TV broadcast? The 21st century version is Thomas Jefferson shedding a tear for what we have done to the Republic, liberty, and justice.

|9.7.07 @ 5:35PM|#

It's funny, the government wants us to recite the Pledge of Allegience but they don't take seriously the last 5 words.

|9.7.07 @ 5:59PM|#

In the post 9/11 world, the Constitution only gets in the way of the government protecting you from the evildoers. In a world full of Islamic boogeymen, we no longer have the luxury of living with the liberty that document provides.

|9.7.07 @ 6:15PM|#

The aw shucks wisdom of Huckabee:

If your kid breaks something in a store, don't pay for it and leave. Let him run around and break as many things as possible, so that he doesn't feel bad about breaking the first thing.

|9.7.07 @ 6:21PM|#

I think this dust up is like the last one with Giuliani. It seems at first like Paul took in on the chin with the sound bite. But the more what was said gets examined the better Ron Paul looks and the more it will come back to bite the other guy.

|9.7.07 @ 6:23PM|#

He says:

simulates the warm fuzziness of folksy wisdom and yet has no real content

and then in the very next sentence whips out:

with a history that predates the dawn of civilization

Aside from what for most to them is only a exceedingly tenuous genealogical connection to the inhabitance of the same plot of land thousands of years ago, what in the flying hell does this have to do with anything?

Justin Raimondo is ridiculous. Huckabee's silly stories aside, there is nothing absurd to the notion that even if you believe the invasion was wrong, we might owe it to the people living there to act in a manner which is in their best interests instead of our own for the time being.

|9.7.07 @ 6:27PM|#

semm,

Their country is their responsibility. Maybe if we stop babying them they'll step up to the plate.

Oh, and then there's the small detail that they themselves want us to leave. If I understand Huck (and others among the neocon ignorantia) correctly, he thinks we need to stick around for the benefit of the people who want us to leave.

Franklin Harris|9.7.07 @ 6:32PM|#

Ron Paul is certainly getting better at debating, as evidenced by his quick smackdown of Chris Wallace. But he is still learning.

The perfect comeback to Huckabee's grandstanding remark about how the U.S. cannot "sacrifice its honor" by leaving Iraq would have been to say, "Gov. Huckabee, a president should be more concerned about needlessly sacrificing the lives of brave American soldiers than the honor of a few politicians."

Game. Set. Match.

|9.7.07 @ 6:49PM|#

Paul's response was just fine, though the media has effectively ripped it out of context. It is strange that so many libertarians accept the "we broke it, we own it analogy" (as if the Iraqis can be "owned" by anyone) in foreign policy but reject it in domestic policy. Most would dispute the theory that more intervention is the solution to the failures of intervention in welfare, price controls, etc.

Franklin Harris|9.7.07 @ 6:57PM|#

Paul's response was fine factually, unfortunately facts have to be couched in clever sound bites. But, as I said, Paul is getting better at that. The "No! We should take our marking orders from the Constitution" line was perfect, playing both to his base and to grassroots conservatives. That Rudymcromey snickered at the line shows how out of touch all of them are with the GOP base on anything not having to do with pandering over the military.

|9.7.07 @ 7:42PM|#

Ron Paul and his tin foil hat wearing followers are all nuts. I have a great video for Ron Pauls supporters,check it out:

http://eclectech.co.uk/mindcontrol.php

Huckabee beat the tar out of Paul..
Because of this great exchange Huckabee is getting my vote.

|9.7.07 @ 7:51PM|#

There was far more applause for Paul than any pro-war Republicans can possibly be comfortable with.

The best an also-ran can hope for is to change the debate among the heavyweights, in a way that forces them acknowledge things they'd rather ignore. Think of Ross Perot talking about deficits in 1992.

On that score, Ron Paul has succeeded brilliantly.

Oh, and btw, Mike Huckabee is neither responsible for the secret police atrocities of the Bush administration, nor has he endorsed them, nor was he discussing them. He was talking about the Iraq War.

|9.7.07 @ 7:55PM|#

As a somewhat neutral observer, and someone who'd have trouble choosing between Huckabee and Paul if someone held a gun to my head and forced to vote in the Republican primary, here was my take on the exchange: I think Huckabee started out ahead, as Paul initially came across as a bit looney, but Paul put together a very strong case, and it ended up a tie.

Fluffy|9.7.07 @ 8:34PM|#

I think one other thing about the two-stage exchange between Paul and Huckabee that has to be pointed out is that Huckabee took the collectivist position.

Huckabee explicitly assigned the moral blame for decisions made by Bush and by a majority of the Congress to the nation as a whole.

Last time I checked, Mike, I was responsible for my own actions and no one else's. We actually DON'T make mistakes as a country. One administration makes mistakes for its own part, and the next administration can continue those mistakes or stop them as it sees fit and as the law allows.

And the people who opposed the war and who opposed Bush's policies didn't make the mistake, Mike. What outrageous moral extortion. Paul stands up in 2002 and gets the whole thing right, from the absence of WMD's to the absence of a threat from Saddam to the likelihood of a quagmire to the likelihood of enhanced recruiting opportunities for terrorist groups, and Paul is part of the mistake? B fucking S.

|9.7.07 @ 9:04PM|#

Huckabee seems to have been influenced by (or more likely is accidentally paralleling the thought of) movie-critic-turned-author-of-a-book-on-honor James Bowman, who wrote the following back on August 27:

"The anti-war crowd have never been able to understand this: war is always stupid, immoral, unjust, hateful, but once a country is engaged in one the national honor is also engaged, and the consequences of dishonor are incalculable. There is no way to "redeploy" American troops, to use a favorite euphemism of the Democrats, so long as there is still fight in the enemy, without surrendering. And surrender is always a dishonor. For us to surrender to the terror campaign - whether al-Q'aeda or "civil war" makes no difference - would be to devalue America's word in the international arena forever. This would be disastrous not only to us but to the world order that we uphold and must uphold in spite of the Buchananites others who think we can simply refuse this role and go back to being Fortress America. They, too, fail to understand national honor."

http://www.jamesbowman.net/diaryDetail.asp?hpID=164

|9.7.07 @ 9:24PM|#

More concerned with image than the consequences of their actions.

|9.7.07 @ 9:29PM|#

Mike Huckabee makes it sound like we broke a timeshare: we bought it and we have to keep paying for it forever.

Fluffy|9.7.07 @ 10:34PM|#

Bowman would fit in well as part of a tribe of barbarians.

Refusal to withdraw from a strategic or tactically disadvantageous position is the hallmark of the barbarian at war. "Warrior Mentalities" whose self-image and pride are bound up in a determination to never retreat are pathetically easy for the more clever to manipulate and slaughter, because once led into an ambush they're too stupid and proud to get out. They are also childishly easy to provoke into precipitate action, and once provoked they're too stupid and too proud to re-evaluate their decisions with a cooler head.

JengoPop|9.8.07 @ 12:01AM|#

Yes, but who do you favor for Republican nomination? Who will win, Rudy, Mitt, Ron Paul, Fred? Vote today at http://www.pollicious.com

|9.8.07 @ 12:09AM|#

There was far more applause for Paul than any pro-war Republicans can possibly be comfortable with.

I'm honestly surprised that Paul received any applause during a segment of a debate where he comes out against the war.

|9.8.07 @ 12:36AM|#

for those who think there were no wmd's... There were and had France, and Russian names on them. US will never admit to that in public. Because that would mean war against both. So, yup there were no wmd... LOL

yeah right, gimme another bear...

|9.8.07 @ 1:51AM|#

""Because of this great exchange Huckabee is getting my vote""

I guess you don't smoke and you enjoy telling other they can't either.

LOL|9.8.07 @ 4:02PM|#

for those who think there were no wmd's... There were and had France, and Russian names on them. US will never admit to that in public. Because that would mean war against both. So, yup there were no wmd... LOL


*hic* ...an' another thing... they buried th' WMDs in Roswell, New Mexshico... sons a bisches... *hic* lemme tell all you people summin... I can kick all yer librul asses! *clunk* Whoopsh...

Beartender, gimme another one...

Tamara|9.8.07 @ 5:21PM|#

I think it's fitting that Ron got booed when stating he got his marching orders formt he constitution.

Actually, the perception that Ron got booed in this segment is totally false. In actuality, he was being cheered, and continued to be cheered. However, people in the audience started booing when they say Rudy Giuliani's sneering mug on the projection screens at the front of the auditorium.

Here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJkfVdMEx5k

Whether this was a ploy by Fox News to take advantage of the likely response I don't know, and honestly I wouldn't bet they expected Rudy to be booed. But they have certainly played it to their advantage.

Yet another example of Fox making sure we know only their version of the truth. Thank God for the internet.

|9.8.07 @ 5:53PM|#

Tamara,

You're saying that Ron Paul supporters were booing while he was speaking just because Rudy appeared on the big screen? I'm skeptical to say the least.

The people booing were the same people who were cheering for Chris Wallace's "marching orders" question. Occam's razor.

|9.9.07 @ 3:00PM|#

"Refusal to withdraw from a strategic or tactically disadvantageous position is the hallmark of the barbarian at war."

I really have to disagree with you here. It is in the Warrior Ethos to never accept defeat, and imagine if the 101st Airborne Division had accepted this attitude at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

|9.10.07 @ 11:59AM|#

The 101st won at Bastogne.

Their objective was to hold, and they held. They beat off attack after attack, successfully.

Why has the American right ceased to consider defense an honorable objective?

|9.10.07 @ 1:01PM|#

Because power grabbing requires offence?