Reason Writers Around Town

January 4, 2008

In the cover story for the January issue of Politics magazine (formerly Campaigns & Elections), Kerry Howley breaks down Iowa caucuses champ Mike Huckabee. The lede:

Pick an issue – any issue – being debated in the United States of America as we approach the 2008 elections, and Mike Huckabee can find a way to tell you that it won’t matter until we collectively slim down. Education? “Kids can’t learn,” he told Charlie Rose in November, “because they’re sick.” The economy? Obesity “will bankrupt this country,” he said in the same interview. The War on Terror? “National security,” he told me in November, “isn’t going to mean much if we have a generation of kids so physically incapacitated they can’t go to war.”

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

|1.4.08 @ 5:21PM|#

You know, I am trying to tie Big Corn Syrup and Huckster's win in Iowa and I can't do it.

Dave w.,
Help me out here.

TLB|1.4.08 @ 5:41PM|#

Oddly enough, she seems to have forgotten a Huck negative, but I can't recall what it is... It's related to something he said and did as gov... oh, whatever could that be? I know, let's ask the MSM, since they've done such a bang-up job covering Huck's negatives.

|1.4.08 @ 6:08PM|#

You know, if Mike Huckabee is so concerned about making people lose weight, maybe he should start with his sons.

|1.4.08 @ 6:09PM|#

Which candidate abuses what the most?
a) Rudy Giuliani and being mayor during 9/11
b) John McCain and being a POW during Vietnam
c) Mike Huckabee losing weight

Bingo|1.4.08 @ 6:10PM|#

d) Fred Thompson and his dulcet voice

BakedPenguin|1.4.08 @ 6:13PM|#

Man, I can't wait until December, when Huckajeebus is stuck doing Subway commercials with Jared.

Bingo|1.4.08 @ 6:25PM|#

Holy shit, Kerry. Mike Huckabee has to be one of the most saccharine politicians in the world. He might even be a worse nanny-stater than Hillary, just because he really believes what he says!

"From Hope to Higher Ground," his campaign manifesto, offers 12 "stops" to restoring America's greatness, as in "stop thinking horizontally" and "stop being a selfish citizen." These are followed by bullet-pointed lists of helpful advice such as "eliminate fried foods from your diet" and "don't use profanity."

I feel ill.

|1.4.08 @ 6:42PM|#

Fuck, this long article made me burn the fries, now I'm going to need another drink.

|1.4.08 @ 6:57PM|#

I don't like Huck and would never support him, but on a libertarian perspective, I'd say he's better than Giuliani, Romney or McCain. He supports the FairTax and the abolition of the IRS, and he has been critical of Bush's foreign policy, which is more than I can say of those others. Plus, he'd lose to Obama, which would be my preferred outcome. Obama is a moderate liberal with many libertarian tendencies and a humble foreign policy. I'll take that over most of the rest of the candidates.

Nicholas D. Rosen|1.4.08 @ 7:10PM|#

The UnFairTax (national sales tax) isn't particularly libertarian, and we'd need the IRS (perhaps with a different name) to colect it. As to Obama, don't get me started.

|1.4.08 @ 7:12PM|#

c) Mike Huckabee losing weight

He's _lost_weight!? How fat was he?
An odd cause for him to espouse, certainly, given his entire family is morbidly obese.

|1.4.08 @ 7:15PM|#

Actually, the little girl isn't visibly fat in their Xmas card (standing behind a bench), but, as mentioned above, those sons are blimps!

ian|1.4.08 @ 7:18PM|#

apparently you can be fat and still hang a dog

|1.4.08 @ 7:34PM|#

PUSH and tuck and pray and rest.

PUSH and tuck and pray and rest.

C'mon, everybody, let's Huck-ercize!

|1.4.08 @ 7:57PM|#

Tuck
with a T


where's the fun in dat

Otter|1.4.08 @ 8:09PM|#

Huckabee is courting Anti-Catholic bigots because he's running against a Catholic, and insulting Mormonism because he's running against a Mormon.

He turns rapists loose to commit more crimes and shows no sympathy for their victims.

By what possible criteria is anyone calling this slimy little creep "a nice guy"?

|1.4.08 @ 9:00PM|#

"National security," he told me in November, "isn't going to mean much if we have a generation of kids so physically incapacitated they can't go to war."

It's like the Insufferable Huck is just daring us to get all Godwin on his ass...

|1.4.08 @ 9:14PM|#

Did He get his bump from the lower tier from the IAM (International Association of Machinists) union (they co-endorsed him with Hillary) or from the pulpit via the Millenialist 'Left Behind' series endorsement? Has anyone figured out why he got the free press suddenly or how?

|1.4.08 @ 9:24PM|#

here's the link to IAM endorsement of then (Sept. 4, 2007) second-tier Huckabee... http//oh.goiam.org/news3567.htm

|1.4.08 @ 11:35PM|#

"National security," he told me in November, "isn't going to mean much if we have a generation of kids so physically incapacitated they can't go to war."

"No more chocolate, Timmy. We need you healthy and strong so you can kill brown people in ten years!"

|1.5.08 @ 12:57AM|#

There's a bit of hilarious Colbert-esque parody going on at www.mikehuckabeeforum.com. Of course, most of his supporters barely have the intellectual capacity to lift their knuckles off the floor and type, so they don't get that it's a joke.

20-something Hipster|1.5.08 @ 5:30AM|#

Uhhh...so I went to mikehuckabeeforum.com...but I think I'm missing something. Are you sure these aren't ALL parody-posters?!

|1.5.08 @ 1:56PM|#

Hell, Huckabee even manages to make his son's alleged torturing and killing of a dog a calorie issue:

According to NEWSWEEK Huckabee claimed that his son did not engage in "intentional torture", instead claiming that, "There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated."

|1.5.08 @ 6:25PM|#

likable? i don't like him.

|1.7.08 @ 6:52AM|#

LOL! Huck-ercise! Brilliant. Get a copyright Joe so that if this douchebag becomes president, you can make millions.

|1.8.08 @ 1:38AM|#

Mike Huckabee is the spirit of the American Revolution, 1776. You have to give the man a chance. He is REAL.

|1.8.08 @ 1:43AM|#

As for that young lady on the Times bloggerheads blathering on about how we need to keep open minds about the Burmese and Thai sex trade because that is the only option for these women... YOU ARE SICK IN THE HEAD. You need to be shipped off to Afghanistan and see how it feels. If you had children, you would understand that NO ONE wants their child to have prostitution as their so-called "only option" in your DISTORTED free market libertarian WARP SHOW. GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM, FOOL!

|1.8.08 @ 1:47AM|#

THANK GOD the IRRATIONAL GOD strikes back against REASON. If you idiots represent "reason," then we are certainly back in the Middle Ages.

GO HUCKABEE. SAVE OUR COUNTRY in 2008!

|1.8.08 @ 9:42AM|#

ezekiel...baby...how many gods do you pray to? Surfer Jesus? The money god? I happen to think that it is beyond reason to believe in some old man with a beard who lives in the clouds and reaches down and helps his true believers when they need it...well, sometimes he helps..other times he just ignores you. We need more preachers in charge like we need a collective hole in the head. Conservatives: KEEP YOUR BIGOTED RELIGIOUS BELIEFS TO YOURSELVES!!!! If you are standing around, wringing your hands and waiting for someone to "save" you, then you are part of the problem.

FireChild|1.8.08 @ 1:26PM|#

To ezekial:

Explain how an all-loving god would sit by and let millions of people be slaughtered by a fascist from Germany. Explain the presence of the dinosaurs that predate human history by 65 million years yet are not acknowledged in any religious text. Explain how the Vatican pushed for progress by locking up a man who discovered that the Sun does not rotate around the Earth. Explain how a forgiving god can stand idling by as people use his name to kill other people who aren't exact duplicates of themselves.

You can't because religion is not based on observation and deduction, it is based on emotion and feelings. Religion has a long history of holding back progress because things offend them.

|1.8.08 @ 11:36PM|#

All-loving God gave free will to humans. He is profoundly saddened when humans use free will to do perverted, harmful deeds, but he gave us the ability to reason and use our judgment rather than creating us as automatons. This is why we will ultimately be held accountable for them.

Your assertion that dinosaurs aren't documented in any religious text is a straw man argument. First of all, the age of the dinosaurs is irrelevant. Second, that "beasts of the Earth" were created prior to mankind is clearly written in Genesis, a book that all three major monotheistic religions hold sacred. Genesis does not catalogue all of these "beasts." Horses aren't mentioned there either, but that bears no relevance to disproving God.

The "Vatican" and the Catholic church (as well as leaders of many other organized world religions) have promulgated several misguided. albeit generally well-intentioned, policies in the history of mankind. These leaders, however dedicated, are also human, and therefore fallible. That doesn't preclude the existence of a loving Creator, or detached benificent being, that each person can believe in and/or develop a relationship with and/or worship as he finds fit. Indeed, the Bible even predicts and warns against such "false teachers."

Religion also has a long history of promoting progress and aiding the human condition. The primary reason for widespread literacy beyond a select few was for promulgation of holy texts and increasing their accessibility. For this purpose arose the printing press. Who gave us masterpieces of Michealangelo, Raphael, and countless others? The patronage of this same "Vatican." Most interestingly, 70% of the social aid in this country comes from faith-based organizations.

Volumes have been written on these topics, FireChild. Reasonable people know that it's not as simple as you posit here.