Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
The Dog Days of David Huckabee
About the strangest family scandal to emerge so far in
Campaign 2008 involves Mike Huckabee's son David, a Boy Scout camp,
and a dog dangled unto death. From a Newsweek account by Michael
Isikoff:
One issue likely to get attention is [Huckabee's] handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney- bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group-to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed....
Huckabee called [former director of Arkansas State Police John] Bailey's account "totally untrue" and described him as a "bitter" exemployee. "I asked him to resign because he had so alienated the entire state police," he said. "It had nothing to do with my son."...
The director told NEWSWEEK only that a stray dog was "put down" and that the counselors were fired for violating the Scout credo to be "kind."...
Are the allegations true? It's not clear from this account, but as a former Eagle Scout interned for several summers at the wonderful Forestburg (near the New York/New Jersey border), I can tell you that what happens at scout camp stays at scout camp.
Isikoff is certainly right to imply that as the former tub of goo Huckabee rises in the polls like some sort of slimmed-down Ron Paul blimp, all sorts of weird shit is going to come out about him, his past, and more. He's been in the public eye too long and comes from a milieu that gave him wide range to pander to all sorts of creeptacular elements in American cultural and political discourse (which, to give Huckabee credit, he might fully agree with). Witness the recent flap over his 1992 comments about AIDS.
If nothing else, the story of David the Doggie Killer certainly makes the Huckabee Christmas card, already a disturbing spectacle, as rich a text as an Antonioni film:
Bonus Tale of Republican Party Animal Killer: Kitty cats say never forget Bill Frist, the Sid Vicious of the Senate, who did things, including felinicide, his way.
|12.17.07 @ 8:09AM|#
I've always lived by the following...
Be afraid of:
1. Rabid Dogs
2. Politicians
3. Families who take family photos wearing matching outfits
Since the Huckster meets 2 of 3 (or arguably, all three), I now
fear he is a son of Hades...
|12.17.07 @ 8:26AM|#
I'm not sure Reason has ever dealt with the "real" reason Gov.
Huck worked so hard to free a rapist--because his victim was
related to Bill Clinton! The Huffington Post has the gory details
here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/04/documents-expose-huckabee_n_75362.html
So Huckabee has a grotesquely fat son who likes to hang dogs and he
worked to free a rapist because the chick he raped was related to
Bill Clinton. Yeah, we're in Arkansas!
Buford Puser|12.17.07 @ 8:30AM|#
Don't forget Rudy's comare Judy's former career demonstrating surgical products on stray dogs.
|12.17.07 @ 8:30AM|#
Man, they are asking a lot of those vertical stripes.
Will the GOP voters be dumb enough to nominate Huckabee? I pray
they are. This photo alone ends his chances of winning in a general
election.
|12.17.07 @ 8:41AM|#
They sure received a lot of gifts from the Lord's bounty. Truly their cup runneth over...
|12.17.07 @ 8:49AM|#
They sure received a lot of gifts from the Lord's bounty.
Truly their cup runneth over...
Lord's bounty, Arkansas taxpayers, what's the difference?
|12.17.07 @ 8:51AM|#
Would people really hold Senior Huckabee to task for Junior
Huckabee's crimes?
Wow. What a shallow nation we have become.
CB
|12.17.07 @ 8:52AM|#
Mrs. Huckabee seems to a tight grip on the dog's neck in the
photo. Maybe it's a hereditary thing?
I don't even know how to describe those shirts. The staff at
Casual Male Big & Tall must have been shocked that
they sold three of them. "We're sold out of 3x,4X, and 5X of the
striped ones?!? No fuckin' way!"
jimmydageek|12.17.07 @ 8:52AM|#
Damn, I thought inbreeding might have been outlawed in AR by now, but those picture seems to refute that.
|12.17.07 @ 8:57AM|#
Would people really hold Senior Huckabee to task for Junior
Huckabee's crimes?
I think the question here is whether Huck, Sr. played some part in
Jr.'s lack of punishment.
I know little about scout stuff, so I may be talking out of my ass
here, but hey, anything to keep that theocratic douchebag out of
higher office...
|12.17.07 @ 9:06AM|#
Back in the late 70's my father proposed a constitutional amendment putting an additional qualification on the presidency - No Brothers.
|12.17.07 @ 9:21AM|#
That picture is unreal. The strips jump out at me like some
optical illusion.
"Shoot Pa, I done hung a dog and now they want to kick me out of
scouttin'"
"Don't worry boy. The lord forgives you 'cause I say he does. And
the State of Arkansas forgives you 'cause I say they do."
Abdul|12.17.07 @ 9:26AM|#
Can't we just dislike Huckabee on the merits instead of for his lousy christmas card photos?
Episiarch|12.17.07 @ 9:27AM|#
That picture is exactly the type of image you'd see on Something Awful's "Cliff Yablonski Hates You" feature. If you go to that link, be prepared. It's sort of NSFW.
|12.17.07 @ 9:39AM|#
Episiarch -- "sort of" Not Safe For Work? Where exactly would
such invective and hating be even marginally acceptable viewing
matter for a workplace? Goth R Us?
Had to wiki NSFW -- my first guess was "No Stinkin' Frickin'
Way"
Episiarch|12.17.07 @ 9:44AM|#
prole, is this your first exposure to Something Awful? You have much to learn, grasshopper.
|12.17.07 @ 9:59AM|#
Has anyone here contemplated the fact that there is at least a
reasonable chance, I would say one in five maybe, that the general
election next year could be between Huckabe and Edwards? If that
happens could someone please shoot me?
As for Huckabee and his kid going all Michael Vick on some poor
dog, anyone who has lived in a small town in middle America knows
that the preacher's kids are almost invariably the meanist nastiest
little bastards on God's green earth. Considering Huckabe is a
former minister, this doesn't suprise me.
Elemenope|12.17.07 @ 10:03AM|#
Prolefeed --
I recommend, for your enjoyment, Something Awful's Photoshop
Phridays.
|12.17.07 @ 10:07AM|#
Alan Vanneman,
That story is disgracful. "Praise the Lord Jesus has saved his soul
and he has repented" is not much of a corrections policy if you ask
me. Dumb fucking hillbilly.
|12.17.07 @ 10:22AM|#
Don't forget the Romney family puts the dog on the roof of the
station wagon when the family takes to the highway, and that's the
dog they LIKE.
In other news, damn the Huckabee family is ugly.
|12.17.07 @ 10:29AM|#
I imaged the exchange with the dog went this way:
"I don't have to listen to you! You're a dog! You don't have a
soul!"
-Family Guy
T|12.17.07 @ 10:54AM|#
Taktix,
The whole family in matching outfits is pretty common for
politicians Christmas cards. Indeed, even unto the third and fourth
generations. It's pretty creepy to see a whole passel of pink puffy
people in matching outfits, from little kids on up to whichever
elected buffoon sent the card. They even tell you who they all are
up until about 10 members. After 10 family members in the photo,
you get the "Poltician family" or " Politician & Wife and
family" instead of individual names.
My wife gets a lot of these cards. Marveling at the bad taste and
horrible matching outfits is one of the many, many things that
keeps me from voting republican.
|12.17.07 @ 10:55AM|#
"Did anyone think of the movie "Black Sheep" after reading
this?"
Chris Farley may have been fat drunk and stupid but he never had
the serial killer look this guy does. Forget the wierdo strips
picture, look at the mug shot of junior.
|12.17.07 @ 11:01AM|#
"After 10 family members in the photo, you get the "Poltician
family" or " Politician & Wife and family" instead of
individual names."
If they were a little bit more inclusive, they might be kind of
fun. "Politician & Wife, Family, ex mistress, drug addled
bastard son, current mistress, current part time girlfriend,
teenage male page that he likes to talk dirty to, wife's special
female "companion and drinking buddy". Now that would be a made for
TV photo.
T|12.17.07 @ 11:17AM|#
Well, I'm not prepared to say who's who in the larger
collections. Maybe that's how they bulk up the headcount to make it
look like they still talk to their family.
This year's current favorite has the whole collection sitting on
park benches in front of a palm tree down by the shore. One
particular specimen who looks to be mid 20s is holding up an empty
stocking like he won a prize or something. The politician in
question (State Rep W. Smith) looks like he's half in the bag. If I
was motivated I'd pull it off the front of the fridge and scan it
for you.
Tom DeLay's cards were always pretty classic.
ed|12.17.07 @ 11:24AM|#
Can't we just dislike Huckabee on the merits instead of for
his lousy christmas card photos?.
Why not both?
|12.17.07 @ 11:44AM|#
It's probably just the bad photo and knowing the story, but I
got the same vibe off that picture.
I'd be interested to see a sample of his handwriting.
|12.17.07 @ 11:55AM|#
When you're dealing with a baptist minister, you are dealing
with the heart of creepiness.
Just start with the fact that they refer all their decisions to the
Holy Spirit, and that THERE IS NO HOLY SPIRIT. Isn't fifty-two kind
of old to be having an imaginary friend?
Police blotters are full of stories of men who heard a voice in
their head telling them to kill. The Old Testament has lots of
those stories too, except the perps are the heroes. That's the
culture out of which Huckabee is coming from, and let's hope he's
not as 'committed' a Christian as he claims to be.
ed|12.17.07 @ 12:55PM|#
If Daddy goes all the way, that kid is a prime candidate for his own brand of celebrity beer.
|12.17.07 @ 1:34PM|#
Police blotters are full of stories of men who heard a voice
in their head telling them to kill. The Old Testament has lots of
those stories too, except the perps are the heroes.
All too true. You're an intolerant radical atheist for pointing it
out though. Or so I've been told.
|12.17.07 @ 1:38PM|#
You're never a former Eagle Scout.
You can be an Eagle Scout formerly interned for several summers at
Forestburg...
You also may be a former member of NESA...
But you're always an Eagle. Be proud.
|12.17.07 @ 1:45PM|#
"Police blotters are full of stories of men who heard a voice in
their head telling them to kill. The Old Testament has lots of
those stories too, except the perps are the heroes."
History is full of egotistical atheist utopians promising heaven on
earth without God and ending up killing people by the millions.
Other than Eric Rudople, I honestly can't think of a recent serial
killer who claimed to do it in the name of Christianity. The guy
out California recently was an atheist trying to kill Christians.
Tim McVeigh was a radical atheist, although in reason world he is
often pointed to as an example of a "Christian Terrorist".
Certainly, religious wars in the reformation Europe killed millions
but those were politically as well as religiously motivated and no
worse than what the wars started by National Socialism and
Communism. I dislike Huckabee as much as the next guy, but all and
all I would say his belief in Christianity is preferable than the
belief that man can end all injustice by ending the right to own
private property and having everything owned and divided to each
according to his need by the state and all of this can be yours if
only you renounce religion and transform yourself and everyone
around you into the new man. Frankly, that idea has killed a hell
of a lot more people than the belief in the Holy Spirit.
T|12.17.07 @ 2:21PM|#
The idea that there is only one true way to live and anyone who holds differently must be cleansed by fire and steel is responsible for most of the problems of mankind. What exactly that one true way might be is a moot point. Christians, especially here in the South, make a lot of us less devout types nervous because they are way too willing to use the hammer of the state to enforce Christianity on us. If you think I'm exaggerating, please explain to me why the liquor store is closed on Sunday.
|12.17.07 @ 2:25PM|#
"Christians, especially here in the South, make a lot of us less
devout types nervous because they are way too willing to use the
hammer of the state to enforce Christianity on us. If you think I'm
exaggerating, please explain to me why the liquor store is closed
on Sunday."
Tradition. Having lived in both the South and the Northeast, I can
honestly say that while I am no friend of the evangelicals, the
generally make me a hell of lot less nervous than the gun
confiscating, transfat banning, for the children big government
liberals we have in the Northeast.
|12.17.07 @ 2:35PM|#
T & John,
Can't we just agree that the religious right AND the progressive
left are both quick to call in the state to force others into
compliance with their views?
I think we can safely leave it at that without arguing over which
party is better or worse?
|12.17.07 @ 2:39PM|#
"Can't we just agree that the religious right AND the
progressive left are both quick to call in the state to force
others into compliance with their views? "
Fair enough. They are two sides of the same coin. The hard left is
just the puritans who changed their allegence from God to the
State. Ever wonder why the worst nannystaters tend to be in the
Northeast and Mass in particular? That is why, they just turned the
New England puritanism from the religion of God to the religion of
the state. But make no mistake, they are the same sanctimonious
bastards they always were.
|12.17.07 @ 2:58PM|#
Other than Eric Rudople, I honestly can't think of a recent
serial killer who claimed to do it in the name of
Christianity.
Charles Manson.
|12.17.07 @ 2:59PM|#
Can't we just dislike Huckabee on the merits instead of for
his lousy christmas card photos?
Speaking of Christmas card photos - I didn't appreciate getting a
great big piece of pop-up advertising when I clicked on it, Mr.
H&R Editor. And I really don't care what prize I've won.
|12.17.07 @ 3:01PM|#
Ever wonder why the worst nannystaters tend to be in the
Northeast and Mass in particular? That is why, they just turned the
New England puritanism from the religion of God to the religion of
the state.
Except for the parts where "the worst nanny-staters" are from the
upper midwest and the west coast, the political legacy of
Puritanism was turned into a tiny sliver by the hard-drinnking
Irish Catholic political machines a century and a half ago, and the
most enthustiastic "nanny-staters" are and have always been openly
religious, that's some great politicall theory right there.
|12.17.07 @ 3:09PM|#
"Except for the parts where "the worst nanny-staters" are from
the upper midwest and the west coast, the political legacy of
Puritanism was turned into a tiny sliver by the hard-drinnking
Irish Catholic political machines a century and a half ago, and the
most enthustiastic "nanny-staters" are and have always been openly
religious, that's some great politicall theory right there."
In truth I am a little hard on the New England Puritans. You are
correct to point out that some of the worst nanystaters are in the
upper Midwest. The upper Midwest was settled by Presbyterians from
Scotland and Scandinavia and they every bit or more insufferable
than the original New England Puritans. If you want to blame anyone
for our woes, blame John Calvin. I would also point out that
mainline nonevangelical Protestant Churches tend to be incredibly
liberal.
|12.17.07 @ 3:28PM|#
Yeah, I'll never forgive the methodists for helping Castro repatriat Elian Gonzalez. Fucking social justice loving communists.
|12.17.07 @ 4:46PM|#
Republicans are cruel to animals??
Well I guess its an improvement from always calling them racists
any time they mentions entitlement reform.
Also aside from crying after rowing a canoe 100 miles from the cold
and the wet and the sheer exhaustion plus only being like 13 years
old...i really don't think my boy scout experience had anything
about it worthy of hiding...well there was the over exposure to
Duran Duran on the camp radio...but that is not something to hide
but something to forget...i hated their music then just as I do
now.
|12.17.07 @ 4:51PM|#
Except for the parts where "the worst nanny-staters" are
from the upper midwest and the west coast
In Oregon you can still smoke in bars....and drink whiskey while
watching strippers.
I should go back and visit Portland...and drink and smoke and watch
strippers in bars...it is kind of weird that i only did that twice
even when i lived there for 5 years.
GILMORE|12.17.07 @ 5:07PM|#
In Oregon you can still smoke in bars....and drink whiskey
while watching strippers.
"I have been to the mountaintop!! And I've seen the promised
land!!!"
Really? Or-re-gon? how does a man get there brother? Im a heading
out today. Im gots to get my freedoms! Babylon system is da
vampire!
Jeez, it's fucked up that we've gotten to the point where silly
things like having a smoke in a bar is like, "Wowwww! Can you park
on the street too??"
T|12.17.07 @ 5:13PM|#
Can't we just agree that the religious right AND the
progressive left are both quick to call in the state to force
others into compliance with their views?
I'll drink to that. Since I keep a well-stocked bar, the Sunday
blue laws are more of an inconvenience than anything else. Still,
it pisses me off when I run out of cheese on a Saturday night and I
can't buy more on Sunday since I get my cheese at the liquor
store.
I, of course, have no desire to use the state to force anybody to
do anything. I just want to be left alone. Can I use the state to
force the state to leave me alone?
Fido|12.17.07 @ 5:35PM|#
Will people start showing up at Huckie rallies in dog costumes now? It could be mirthful.
John P.|12.17.07 @ 6:18PM|#
. . . as a former Eagle Scout interned for several summers
at the wonderful Forestburg (near the New York/New Jersey border) .
. . .
I was a camper and then a counselor at Forestburg in the mid-70s.
One of the prettiest spots on the face of the earth.
|12.17.07 @ 9:15PM|#
In Oregon you can still smoke in bars....and drink whiskey
while watching strippers.
That'll stop as soon as enough people from CA move up there.
clorox|12.18.07 @ 1:26AM|#
I didn't realize that in addition to being a political family they moonlight as the wait-staff at a chain restaurant for people who think the portions at Applebee's are too small. Two to one that dog was barbecued five minutes after the photo was snapped.
DarkKnight|12.18.07 @ 12:00PM|#
His son's look like they could be villans in the next Batman movie. Man that pic is scary.
|12.22.07 @ 10:43PM|#
Oh my goodness. That photo will sink anyone's election. Except
in Arkansas, I suppose. It evokes images from movies depicting
slick Southern politicians and their cornfed bumbling sons. "O
Brother, Where Art Thou" might be the most recent film to employ
that caricature.
All joking aside, Huckabee really failed as a father and as a
minister when he never took the time to say, at any point during
the first 17 years of the kid's life, "Now, look here. You don't go
hanging dogs. Even if they do look a little sick."
Unamerican, Huckabee. Downright unamerican.
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245