Aleya and the Huckabee

Mike Huckabee, that winsome combination of Mr. Rogers and Lonesome Rhodes, goes pandering:

"Who is your favorite author?" Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.

[Hat tip: Franklin Harris, from whom I also stole the headline.]

Comments

[John]

What he didn't say Jesus Christ?

[Episiarch]

Machiavelli?

[SugarFree]

I figured he'd have said "God, cause he wrote the Bible."

[SugarFree]

Dang it, John.

[ed]

Did P.T. Barnum write anything?

[John]

Sugerfree,

I would bet dollars to doughnuts that at least a few evangelicals out there are starting to wonder about Huckabee because he didn't immediately say Jesus in response to the question or at least Paul, but then they might start wondering if he is a closet Catholic.

[robc]

Actually on topic, CS Lewis was the most influential author in me becoming a libertarian.

[SugarFree]

John,

I completely agree.

As for the topic, I'm one of those Heinlein libertarians.

[John]

I think this is the best thing I have yet seen on Huckabee

One of my favorite movie scenes is from Jaws 2, when Roy Scheider (an underrated actor) is trying to convince the town council that he's spotted yet another shark lurking off the waters of Amity. "But I'm telling you, and I'm telling everybody at this table, that that's a shark. And I know what a shark looks like, because I've seen one up close. And you'd better do something about this one, because I don't intend to go through that hell again!"

If you're wondering why some of us have become so vexed by the sightings of Mike Huckabee's dorsal fin above the choppy waters of Iowa-caucus polling and even out in the high sea of national polls, poor Chief Brody's panic might help you understand. We've seen this before.

Now, some "Huckabashers" have an interest in slapping down Huckabee because he's a threat to their preferred candidates. But for many of us, Huckaphobia is sincere and disinterested. We feel a bit like Lloyd Bochner's assistant in that Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" - the one where Bochner walks into an interstellar stewpot while carrying an alien tome because he doesn't hear his assistant shouting, "It's a cookbook!" Now we're shouting, "It's a compassionate conservative!" - and wondering if voters will hear us in time.

I should probably capitalize those words, because I have no problem - nor can I imagine anyone who does - with a conservative's feeling compassion for the unfortunate, the injured, the infirm, the victimized, the lost puppies, and the birds with broken wings. No, I'm talking about big-"C" Compassionate Conservatism, which in some parts also goes by the name "heroic conservatism."

http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/default.asp?archiveID=11757

[SugarFree]

robc,

Kentucky-related off-topic: Did you see that Lexington joined the rest of the 20th century and legalized package alcohol sales on Sunday? It is only time I can remember any sort of pro-freedom law in my lifetime. My wife and I waited for the Liquor Barn to open, so we could be among the first to buy. Then we got drunk.

[gaijin]

What he didn't say Jesus Christ?

Because Jesus didn't write...he spoke?

[Steve Verdon]

For a guy who thinks the universe was created in one week 6,000 years ago, and super-evolution...Dr. Suess sounds about right, IMO.

[Steve Verdon]

Whoops,

...and super-evolution...

should read as,

...and believes in super-evolution....

[Blue]

Yea, Jesus was/is a philosopher, not some hack writer. Heretic.

[Jamie Kelly]

At least Dr. Seuss could rhyme.
Jesus couldn't even pull off a rudimentary limerick.

[Rhett]

Off topic a bit, but an obscure W.C. Fields connection plus a chuckle:

I was sending my brother an e-mail message regarding Huckabee. My (MS) spell-checker thought Huck's name was misspelled. Offered as correct spellings were, among others, Chickadee and Hoecake.

Carry on.

[robc]

SugarFree,

Yeah, welcome to Louisville last year. 🙂

Also, Louisville's anti-smoking ban got smacked down IN ITS ENTIRETY. I havent checked in links or anything yet, I guess I should check out CJs website.

[Jon H]

At least he didn't say his favorite book is Battlefield Earth, like Mitt?.

[ed]

Huck will be but a footnote in a few months time.
That, or the End Times are upon us.
I'm stocking up on scotch and cigars, just in case.

[BakedPenguin]

...that winsome combination of Mr. Rogers and Lonesome Rhodes...

Awesome. Hopefully, by this time next year, Huckabee will be just another face in the crowd. Ironic though, that Andy Griffith probab;y would be a Huck supporter.

"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.

A presidential candidate being pwned by a 7 year old is just classic. After the election, maybe there's a spot for him on that Fox game show.

[The Democratic Republican]

Jamie Kelly: Jesus told jokes and had things that rhymed. You would just have to hear it in Aramaic. So, while perhaps on par lyrically with Dr. Seuss, he's much funnier than the Huckster thinks himself to be.

[SugarFree]

robc,

Just wait. The anti-smokers'll get you yet...

Also...(if you are a meat-eater)... have you ever been to Palermo Viejo on Bardstown Rd? Argentinian food. Awesome. Probably my favorite restaurant in the city (aside from the Bahn Mi places out near Iroquois Park...)

[Aresen]

"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.

A 7 year old kid is more literate than a presidential candidate.

Why am I not surprised?

[John]

Ed,

If the election comes down to Edwards versus Huckabee, I buying a compound, a large arsenel and moving to far West Texas or maybe Montana.

[James]

I'm sure Huckleburry didn't understand Dr. Seuss or he wouldn't have said that he liked him. Seuss actually wrote a few rather political books(and usually left of center boooks). Butter Battle Book(WMD's), The Lorax (Environmentalism)...

[grizzlyadams]

Well I bet Ron Paul the racist nazi turned him on to Dr. Suess. I doubt Huckabee meant the books by Dr. Suess, that'd be too complex. He meant just the cartoons:

http://www.who-sucks.com/people/dr-seuss-sucks-7-racist-cartoons-from-the-doctor

[Anonymous]

James,

That's precisely why Huck would like them.

He's a pro-life John Edwards.

[buddy]

Huckabee should be commended: He told the truth for the first time in years! Yes, he loves green eggs and ham.

[robc]

SugarFree,

Yeah, the ban is coming back next year. I dont smoke, so dont really care, other than principle.

Ive eaten at PV a few times. Yes, its very good. Have you tried Havana Rumba in St. Matthews? Cuban place, one of my favorites. And if you enjoy beer and pizza, you have to try RichO's (or New Albanian Brewing Company now, both names still work) across the river in, well, New Albany obviously.

[robc]

Back on topic (sort of):

Prince Caspian hits theatres in May of 2008.
Dawn Treader in May of 2010.

[Fluffy]

Jesus never wrote. He only spoke.

He could have avoided all of the possible negative Apostle Paul associations by saying he liked Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Although I have a sneaking suspicion his true love is Isaiah. Judging from a lot of his public statements, Huckabee thinks he's the fulfillment of quite a few Isaiac prophecies.

[robc]

Fluffy,

Sneaking suspicion? You mean since most of the red letter stuff that are OT quotes are from Isaiah? Is that what gave you the sneaking suspicion?

[Shane]

Think she realizes it was pandering or does she think he's just really "special"?

[Tinker]

Actually on topic, CS Lewis was the most influential author in me becoming a libertarian.

Do explain.

[R C Dean]

I'm stocking up on scotch and cigars, just in case.

Like anyone needs an excuse to stock up on scotch and cigars.

And ammo. Don't forget the ammo.

[robc]

Do explain.

Check out Willing Slaves of the Welfare State for an example. There is one sentence that would be my campaign platform if I ever ran for office, lets see if I can remember the 5 "wants" of civilized man:

1. To treat his home as his castle
2. To collect the fruits of his labours
3. To educate his children as his conscience directs
The other two I remember more vaguely
4. To live his life as he sees fit
5. To worship however he wants

[robc]

I got close (inheritance not worship was the 5th, I even spelled conscience and labour right {or wrong, in the case of labour}):

To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death -- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man.

[robc]

The page I found with excerpts has some typos, but here are some other good bits from the same essay:

Thirdly, I do not like the pretensions of Government -- the grounds on which it demands my obedience to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands 'Thus saith the Lord," it lies, and lies dangerously.

...in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that's the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone' schoolmaster and employer?

The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good -- anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence, the new name "leaders" for those who were once "rulers". We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, "Mind your own business." Our whole lives ARE their business.

[robc]

Other Lewis quotes:

From a letter to his brother -
Lord! how I loathe great issues...'Dynamic' I think is one of the words invented by this age which sums up what it likes and I abominate. Could one start a Stagnation Party--which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?

From his poem "Lines During a General Election"-
Their threats are terrible enough, but we could bear/ All that; it is their promises that bring despair.

[robc]

Tinker,

I think you treaded onto one of those "topics to not ask for an explanation".

[ed]

Like anyone needs an excuse to stock up on scotch and cigars. And ammo. Don't forget the ammo.

One priority at a time, R.C.

[Dread]

Awwww...

She's so cute, expecting her leaders to be smart.

[Shane]

robc @ 5:06- good stuff, and here i thought only Tolstoy had anything worth quoting.

[DJ Voton]

Although Huckabee's a "provincial ignoramus" (C. Hitchens), that's a cute story.

[Dr. Deuss]

Huckabee's a flash in the pan, his campaign will be dead by January 5.

In other words,

The Huck is dead
He's dead I said
The Huck's gonna wish
He had stayed in bed

[SFC MAC]

A 7 year old that reads and comprehends C.S. Lewis? She's either a prodigy, or the story is a joke.

[sock puppet]

Perhaps she has read the "Chronicles of Narnia," and that's what she was referencing. A 7 year old might not get it all, but much would be accessible to a bright child of that age. I know children who were reading on their own at age 3 and reading adult-level nonfiction easily at 6 or 7.

[Clint]

>>Jon H | December 21, 2007, 1:52pm | #

>>At least he didn't say his favorite book is Battlefield Earth, like Mitt?.

I believe you're confusing Scientology with Mormonism -- a rather telling mistake.

[Clint Brome]

>>SFC MAC | December 22, 2007, 9:33am | #

>>A 7 year old that reads and comprehends C.S. Lewis? She's either a prodigy, or the story is a joke.

Nonsense. My friends and I read the Chronicles of Narnia when we were in second grade, and loved them.

[blackminorcapullets]

Wow - can't imagine the NYTimes angle on this.

Poor Huck, trying to be nice to a precocious kid on the rubber chicken circuit and all he got was bushwacked.

Perhaps Aleya will be finding some Dostoyevsky under the tree this year and Nietzsche in original german.

[Frank]

robc and Shane: indeed C.S. Lewis' "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State:" is great stuff. Check out this paragraph just after "... if it [the State] adds to its commands, 'Thus saith the Lord,' it lies, and lies dangerously." The paragraph is:

"On just the same ground I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They "cash in." It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants' 'science' -- they didn't think much of Hitler's racial theories or Stalin's biology. But they can be muzzled."

Does this remind anyone of the current Global Warming debate?

[Kevin Soileau]

Jesus Christ didn't author anything.

[cmb53703]

Wow, many seem to remember when Barry Goldwater tried to warn his fellow Republicans about the theocrats. But they just couldn't listen because hey, what does he know, right?

The Republican Party has become little more than a complete joke, a bunch of theocrats and prudes with little respect for free markets, speech, or minds. If we're not careful this nation will become Jesustan

[Britt]

cmb53703, I think that is a vast exaggeration. There is a substantial wing of the party that falls on a more libertarian bent, and it is this sector that is becoming more powerful and influential, not the theocrats. Which is of course a good thing. The unique thing about American politics is that it is the same parties, but they change over the time until they are unrecognizable to their original goal. Jefferson, for example, would be shocked at what his party has become.

I think it's important to shift the Republican Party onto the proper free minds and markets course. After all, the Democrats are statist to the core. If it weren't for their crop of useful idiots they'd be nothing.

[Jim C.]

sock puppet wrote, 'Perhaps she has read the "Chronicles of Narnia," and that's what she was referencing.'

That's what I was thinking. It's a children's book, but for children older than Seuss's target audience. Or Huck, apparently.

cmb53703 wrote, "The Republican Party has become little more than a complete joke, a bunch of theocrats and prudes with little respect for free markets, speech, or minds. If we're not careful this nation will become Jesustan"

We are at less risk of a Christian theocracy than an Islamic one. A small but significant step toward the latter was NO US media outlet publishing the Mohammed cartoons. In the case of the NY Times, it explained why it did not do so in the same column as it reprinted Ofili's "Holy Virgin Mary".

[JPark]

"We are at less risk of a Christian theocracy than an Islamic one."

Huh? Are we a nation of pussies now? An Christian theocracy would just require a majority of the people to vote for it. An Islamic theocracy would take an invasion from people not equipped to take over your local 7-11.

[senor doeboy]

First given the Christians are vilified by the MSM every time a nativity scene is posted in the town square much less if they speak out on a political issue of the day, I find a Christian Theocracy unlikely.

Second given the fact that CAIR and their ilk have link the MSM, elitist bureaucrats and other 5th columnist to their cause slowing giving themselves the special status that Islam demands under Sharia Law. I find that an Islamic Theocracy very likely would happen without a single gun shot, but the velvet glove of P.C. Gestapo thugs making Islam a special group over all other religious groups.

[vanya_6724]

A 7 year old that reads and comprehends C.S. Lewis? She's either a prodigy, or the story is a joke.

My 7 year old read and understood Narnia, sure maybe he doesn't get all the Christian allegory, but he gets the story just fine, and he's no prodigy. Plenty of 7 year olds can read at that level, don't underestimate them.

I'm surprised no one has yet pointed out that Seuss was a progressive leftist, and I think (horrors!) a Unitarian. What's Huckabee thinking?

[Russell Hanneken]

Dr. Seuss, of course, was a warmonger and a racist. More here.