If Republicans are looking for another Ronald Reagan, perhaps they should look no further than Barack Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Steve Benen, as many others have, makes the connection. Basically, Obama is very much in the mold of Reagan, policy-wise, particularly with respect to taxes and the economy (though also, I would add, with respect to foreign policy):

Mike Huckabee recently said, "Ronald Reagan would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time being nominated in this atmosphere of the Republican Party." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had a nearly identical take last year, arguing Reagan "would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today."

I agree, but what does that tell contemporary GOP officials? What should Republicans take away from the fact that, by 2011 standards, their party would dismiss their demigod as a tax-raising, amnesty-loving, pro-bailout, cut-and-run, big-government Democrat?

Or more to the point, doesn't it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?

Given their utter lack of self-awareness, I doubt it does. Besides, their hagiography of Reagan is based largely on myth, on what they think Reagan was all about. Which is to say, they generally project themselves and their agenda onto Reagan and then revere him. It's not clear if they would revere the real Reagan, but probably not. After all, with their increasingly extremist ideology, they make him look like something of a moderate. 

So, yes, Obama is a lot like Reagan. But let's not overstate it. In terms of policy, Obama is very much a centrist who would have sought compromise with Reagan, just as he continues to seek compromise with Republicans (even if they clearly have no interest in compromise). And there would undoubtedly have been room for agreement between the two. (Who knows, Reagan may have supported Obama's health-care reform, not to mention the stimulus and bailouts, and may also have supported Obama's diplomatic-hawkish foreign/military policy. Surely Reagan would have agreed with Obama's conduct of the "war on terror," not to mention the Afghan War.)

But of course Obama is progressive in ways that Reagan never was. They may be somewhat similar in policy terms, but they are vastly different in style, image, and temperament, not to mention in broader historical terms. Both men can inspire, but Obama is more of a technocrat than Reagan ever was. And even if we grant that Obama is generally progressive, his policies are centrist and generally dismissive of progressivism, while Reagan was a movement conservative who played to the right and united the Republican Party as a party of ideological conservatism (even as his own policies often reflected a more conciliatory approach to politics, much like Obama's do).

Anyway, the point, I suppose, is that the Republican Party is really no longer the party of Reagan. As with so much else, Republicans can't grasp that basic reality.

More thoughts on the Republican presidential field

By Richard K. Barry

Now Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is saying that, had he chosen to pursue the Republican nomination for the presidency, he could have beaten Obama. Where have we heard this before?

Oh yeah, Mike Huckabee said the same thing, as did Donald Trump.

This is playground boasting bullshit. If any of these guys thought they could beat Obama, they would have jumped in with bells on. At least Haley Barbour had the integrity to admit that he didn't get in because Obama would just be too hard to beat.

This did, however, get me thinking about what I see as the categories of those who are either running, thought about running or are still thinking about it. It's goes a little something like this:

• Those who feel that this might be their one and only chance to win the thing.
• Those who have no chance of winning either the nomination or the general election but look(ed) on the process as a way to raise their profile or just to push a very specific agenda.
• Those who would have gotten no coverage if the field weren't so weak, so are finding the promise of attention too much fun to pass up (but are otherwise without hope).
• Those who have grown weary of listening to how weak the field is and can't help but at least talk about offering themselves because their egos demand it.
• Corollary to this one: those who can't stand not being talked about as a potential front-runner.
• Those who, when being honest, know that an incumbent president would be hard to beat, especially this one, and know also that they have time on their side, perhaps being young and new to things.
• Those who know that the ideological purity test required by the Republican Party these days is just too hard to navigate.
• And a subset of the previous, those who are being courted by the GOP leadership but who know that the moment they really give it serious consideration, every slight break with conservative orthodoxy that they even thought about would bite them in the ass in a hurry.
• And finally, those who are just delusional (are you listening Newt?)

Make up your own categories. Mix and match. I'll leave it to you to attach names to each grouping. It's a game the whole family can play.

But on that point of candidates who didn't get in but swear that, had they taken the leap, they could have beaten Obama, I have just one thing to say:

I know that if I had only auditioned, I could have been the next American Idol, but I chose not to compete for family reasons. You do believe me, don't you?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

No 2012 presidential run for Mike Huckabee

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Former Arkansas governor, current Fox News star, fundamentalist preacher, "Christian Zionist," anti-gay bigot, Obama-conspiracy-theory spinner, single-mother hater, and Chuck Norris Republican Mike Huckabee announced this evening that he will not -- repeat: NOT! -- be running for president in 2012.

His heart just isn't into it. Or so he says.

He could perhaps have been a formidable candidate in an embarrassingly weak Republican field, and he certainly could have challenged for right-wing social conservative support against Newt Gingrich and (relatively) more moderate figures like Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, but at the same time he may not have enough anti-government, anti-tax cred to appeal to the Tea Party.

His heart may or may not be into it, but I suspect he took a look at his chances and found them wanting. 

Which means he can stay at Fox, rake in the money, prepare for the Rapture, and do shit like this.

Elephant Dung #26: Glenn Beck calls Huckabee the worst thing possible... a progressive

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By R.K. Barry 

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

In Glenn Beck's vocabulary, there is no dirtier word than "progressive." All the villains in his warped understanding of history can be shown to carry this particular banner: Wilson, FDR, TR, LBJ, WJC, and, of course, the current occupant of the White House. Their shared sin is some variant of the claim that they use government to devise schemes that ultimately oppress the people. Nazis, Communists, New Dealers, Great Society advocates -- progressives each and every one. It's not very clear how it all works, and it usually involves a chalk board and diagrams, but that's the charm that is Mr. Glenn Beck.

Fascinatingly enough, he has recently taken to calling Mike Huckabee a progressive.

Judging from the audio clip you can access here, it seems that Huck started his slide when he supported Michelle's Obama's anti-obesity campaign. Go figure.

Many of us have been saying for some time that the radical right will get tired of simply going after liberals. At some point, which seems to be happening now, they will go after those putatively within their own ranks who they deem not pure enough -- not conservative enough.

Huckabee has a show on the Fox network, as had Beck until recently, so maybe this is a sort of parting shot at his old company. The truth is that for ideological purists like Beck and Tea Partiers no one is truly safe and everyone must be scrutinized, even as their own circle becomes smaller and smaller.

As I have said before, this is what has been called the tyranny of virtue.

Any willingness to believe that one's opponents might just have something to offer, that they might have something reasonable to say, that they might be of value as human beings, is proof of one's own unworthiness to continue on in the ranks of the anointed. You will recall that former Republican Florida Governor Charlie Crist was thrown overboard as a potential Senate nominee for having once hugged President Obama. Tough crowd.

We see this with the Tea Party v. the Republican leadership. And now Glenn Beck, the high priest of the conservative revolution, has just banished one who the rest of us thought was among the elect.

The only question now is, who's next?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Remember 2008?

By Carl 

After eight years of Bush, you may recall, there were Democrats chomping at the bit to get a Democrat in the White House. There were three main candidates -- John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama -- and all three had fervent, passionate partisans. We battled and threw muck and eventually the field winnowed down to one, and the passion the rest of us had went to supporting Barack Obama.

Anybody but Bush('s successor). We had seen the terrible toll he had taken on the nation, and realized that we had to step in and clean up after the children.

Obama, like Bill Clinton before him only writ larger, has tried his best and perhaps has done the best job that anyone could have done given the circumstances. History will have to determine that (and hopefully history will have a way to measure a Hillary presidency and an Edwards presidency, too).

Even the fiercest progressive have to acknowledge the man was dealt a shitty hand. We can argue about how well he played the hand, and even the degree of crapitude he had versus what assets he held as his hole card, but he certainly didn't walk into the same comparatively rosy scenario that Bush did in 2001 or Clinton did in 1993.

Obama will inspire some of the passion he did in 2008, and no doubt many of the progressives who find deep flaws in his administration (like me: I'm still pissed about Gitmo and the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed) will rally around him. Indeed, he's already started to mend those fences. 

The Republicans, however... 

Only those possible contenders who regularly appear on television — or have made bids before — are well known enough to elicit significant views from their fellow Republicans. And of that group, only one, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, is viewed favorably by more than half of the Republican electorate.

The poll would seem to reflect the late start to the Republican primary season, with many of the major likely candidates seeking to hoard their money and avoid making any missteps that they might have to live with later, when voters go to polls or caucus rooms.

While it may not be unusual for voters' attention to be focused elsewhere at this stage of a campaign, the survey at the very least provides a reality check for a race that has received frenetic coverage at times on cable news and the Internet even though nearly 60 percent of Republicans cannot point to a single candidate about whom they are enthusiastic, according to the Times/CBS poll. 

In case anyone still has doubts about Obama's chances in 2012.

Indeed, John McCain may have picked precisely the wrong election to run in. He could easily have kept his "heir apparent" crown into this election cycle, and probably picked up the nomination with far less difficulty from the likes of Huckabee and Romney (who either would have been the defeated candidate in 2008 or exhausted their personal resources trying), and Sarah Palin (and, by extension, Michele Bachmann) would have been kept off the radar completely. In my opinion, McCain would have been the only viable contender to unseat Obama, à la Reagan in 1980.

This is frankly an astounding poll, when you think about it: Anger at Obama should be at an all-time high, what with the agenda he managed to pass (or shove down the throats of Teabaggers), and as we saw in 2008, that usually means at least one candidate gets the coalescence of that backlash.

Here, we see....nothing.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Cry havoc

By Capt. Fogg

If there's anything being shoved down our throats these days, it's the claim that health care reform is being shoved down our throats. It's all part of the game the minority party is playing by trying to make you think the Democrats won the White House by some sort of fluke and that the desire for health care reform wasn't what Obama's majority of voters were hoping for.

It's been a year now and the screaming hasn't let up for a moment, but a recent poll shows that half the country favors the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act, whether or not you call it ObamaCare and only 43% think it's "too liberal."

It would be amusing of course if the bumper sticker bumpkins did get their "end of an error" by electing Mitt Romney who like the rest of them is giving us that old soft shoe about just how terrible the new law is because as the unimpaired remember, Mitt only a few years ago was hoping his new Massachusetts health care reform would go nationwide. It's easy to call a politician like that a whore, but it's unfair to whores and I don't want to distract from his fellow streetwalker who has been spending a fortune with TV ads warning us of the holocaust, the calamity, the apocalypse sure to wipe us from the earth if we have to have health insurance rather than hope the emergency room can cure our cancer or heart disease -- at public expense. I mean never mind the war, conquest, famine and death -- this is health care!

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

The internal contradictions of Mike Huckabee

By R.K. Barry 

When former Arkansas Governor and potential Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee blurted out twice in the same radio interview that President Obama grew up in Kenya, implying that this helped to explain why the president's worldview is supposedly different from most Americans, I immediately thought that something interesting was going on. It was not, however, the obvious point that Obama did not grow up in Kenya and, in fact, only visited there for the first time in his twenties.

No, anyone remotely well-informed knows where Obama grew up (Hawaii and Indonesia), and Mike Huckabee is generally speaking a fairly well-informed person. The question for me was why he would say such a thing.

His claim that he misspoke and meant to say Indonesia rather than Kenya makes no sense if we examine exactly what he said, which was:

But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

As is also well known, President Obama's father abandoned the family early on, so that part of the statement is contrary to fact. But on the claim that Huckabee simply said Kenya when he meant to say Indonesia, it should be noted that the Mau Mau uprising took place in Kenya in the 1950s. In other words, Huckabee didn't misspeak. He meant to say Kenya, and he said Kenya. He was spreading a blatant falsehood to pander to those on the right who continue to believe that Obama has been influenced by un-American ideas or that he was not even born in America.

Now hold that thought.

A short time later, Huckabee decided it would be good to take on the whole idea of single mothers by slamming Oscar winner Natalie Portman for, at least for moment, being in that category. In yet another radio interview, he stated:

People see a Natalie Portman who boasts, "We're not married but we're having these children and they're doing just fine." I think it gives a distorted image. It's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out-of-wedlock children.

Huckabee then took some heat for his comments from those who think he should mind his own business and then more or less immediately backtracked by claiming that his comments about Natalie Portman's pregnancy were distorted and taken out of context and that he was merely making a point about statistics, not a poke at the Oscar-winning actress's pregnancy before marriage.

But just as in his retracted claim that Obama grew up in Kenya, I suspect that this is all bullshit. I am guessing that Mike Huckabee, should he choose to run for president, is busy sending up flairs to signal to hardcore conservatives everywhere that he is on their side. His efforts to distance himself from his own comments are, I believe, an equally cynical attempt to curry favour with more centrist swing voters who don't have much of an appetite for birtherism or moralizing of the Christian right variety.

Huckabee knows the truth and that's what makes all of this so unseemly. The challenge for any Republican presidential hopeful is going to be to try to square the circle: to be conservative enough to secure the nomination and centrist enough to win the general election. The former governor of Arkansas is hoping that, by speaking out of both sides of his mouth, enough voters will hear what they need to hear to believe that he is their guy.

Could it work? Stranger things have happened.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Elephant Dung #20: Fox News suspends Santorum and Gingrich but not Palin and Huckabee

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

The Huffington Post:

After news broke on Wednesday that Fox News was suspending former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum as a contributor to the network, it didn't take long before the potential presidential contender spoke out on the matter.

Appearing on CNN's "John King USA" the same day, Santorum said the decision to sever ties came after never being asked by anyone at Fox News about his plans for 2012.

According to the network, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who both contribute to the network and are believed to be mulling presidential campaigns, have not been suspended in their roles.

"I don't know why Fox differentiated, whether there's been conversations," he said. "They didn't talk to me and ask me whether I'm running or not. It wasn't something that we had a conversation about. I don't know whether other people have had conversations."

It's not clear why Fox News did what it did, and whether what it did involved playing favourites -- selecting Palin and Huckabee, who will continue to have the network's media platform from which to play politics -- but a wedge seems to have been driven into the potential Republican presidential field, and perhaps into the party itself.

Unless, of course, Fox News knows something we don't, namely, that Santorum and Gingrich are running and Palin and Huckabee aren't, but that seems far-fetched.

For his part, Santorum didn't take any direct shots either at Fox News or at his rivals, but he didn't really have to. He has previously gone after Palin and appears to be trying to out-Palin her (by playing aggressively to her right-wing constituency within the GOP), and in reinforcing his seriousness about (thinking about) running he was able to make his anti-Palin point (that she's in it for the money while he's in it to win) without being petty. In the end, after all, he'd need Palin's support to get anywhere in the primaries, and it hardly behooves him to criticize her more than he already has.

But you can tell he's really irritated.

Huckabee on the carpet

By Capt. Fogg

British comedian Ricky Gervais recently put together a short TV comedy series, An Idiot Abroad -- seven episodes indulging his obvious schadenfreude by making his "friend" and reputed moron Carl Pilkington miserable despite having been being sent to visit some wonderful places. It had the effect of annoying me since Pilkington, who isn't quite the idiot Gervais says he is, seems rather to be a nice and decent sort of fellow and deserved better treatment, even if that would undermine the premise of the show.

I don't feel quite the same way about Likable Mike Huckabee, affable and avuncular and sincere though he may seem. It's as hard to feel sympathy for one whose idiocy seems more purposeful and politically founded than genetic, although that may be a factor too. I'm not just talking about his shameless promotion of Bronze age ignorance and mythology and the snickering denigration of science. I'm not just talking about promoting the invasion of Libya and thus cementing the authority of Qaddafi, making us appear imperialistic and escalating the debt and putting a strain on our military capability. I'm talking abut his attempt to enlist a far more scurrilous bit of political mythology than "creation science" to promote his grotesque candidacy by telling us our president grew up in Africa and so really doesn't either understand us or have our interests at heart.

It's not just the racism. I'm used to racism. It's that the possibility of his candidacy rests on building and arming an insurgency of idiots who neither know or care about reality. It's like inviting the Klan to use your back yard for a rally and claiming you're above that sort of thing yourself.

It's not that he's black, you see -- it's just that you can't trust someone with the troubling attribute of being dark skinned. Smiling Mike surely knows that Barack Obama lived in Indonesia as a small boy but wasn't born in and didn't live in any part of Africa. He knows he was born in the USA as surely as Bruce Springsteen was and Mike Huckabee was and grew up in the American Midwest and was raised by his white relatives. So if he does know that and chooses none the less to have you believe otherwise, he's a liar willing to use lies to get elected. If he doesn't know that, he's an idiot to the degree that he shouldn't be given a more responsible or well paid position than a men's room attendant.

Huckabee shouldn't be trusted with leading a Boy Scout troop, much less the United States. He represents, despite his smiling, self-effacing sincerity, the lower skirt of the intellectual as well as the moral decency bell curve, no matter how you measure it.

Yes, professional fixer and HuckPAC Executive Director J. Hogan Gidley says Huckabee "simply misspoke" during his book tour, which is as convincing as saying the dog didn't crap on the carpet, but simply misshit. It only means he's not toilet trained, can't be trusted and we surely don't want him on the expensive rug in the oval office.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Buddy Roemer, baby! The incredible 2012 Republican presidential field is about to get a whole lot more incredible!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Romney... and Pawlenty... and maybe Gingrich... and maybe Santorum... and maybe, oh, uh... Barbour... and, er, oh... Huckabee possibly... and maybe Giuliani... and, um, Karger, can't forget Karger... and, well, Daniels... and Huntsman, you never know... and Paul, Ron Paul, CPAC star... and The Donald... Trump, that is... and, of course, Palin... or not.

Is that about it? For the big names (Karger excluded), yes, though I highly doubt Barbour will run and I'm highly skeptical Gingrich is serious and even Giuliani isn't that delusional, right? Karger's a gay rights activist and hardly anyone knows who he is, Huckabee's got some right-wing cred but seems less interested than four years ago, and Daniels and Huntsman, the latter Obama's ambassador to China, are just way too reasonable for the GOP, however solidly conservative they may be. Ron Paul has the crazy libertarians behind him, but he's way too anti-establishment, and Trump is a loud-mouthed buffoon who can get a lot of press but who would never win (and will never run -- this is all about generating buzz). And, as for Palin... please. She's tantalizing us, but there's no way she gives up her cushy, absolutely-no-responsibility position as brightest Republican star for what would be an utter disaster, unless she really believes in her own "god"-given greatness and decides that she's an unstoppable force. Which is possible, I admit.

Anyway, what are Republicans to do? Well, maybe they can look to Louisiana.

To Gov. Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American who's relatively sane for the GOP? Er, no.

To Ex-Gov. Buddy Roemer. Who? Exactly.

The GOP's white-bread presidential primary is about to get a dash of Tabasco.

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer will announce Thursday in Baton Rouge that he is forming an exploratory committee, he told POLITICO.

"I should be president or somebody better than I should be," Roemer said in an interview. "And the only way to make sure of that is to make [my opponents] go around me, through me or over me in the primaries."

First, through him or over him? For some reason I don't see that as a huge challenge.

Second, somebody better than him? It's a pretty crappy (potential) field, but he's not exactly a superstar. (And he was actually a Democrat until he switched during his one term as governor.)

And third -- to Politico -- "a dash of Tabasco"? No, he's pretty darn white. Saying that he'd bring some Tabasco (i.e., flavour, or maybe even colour) to the field, because he's from Louisiana, is just plain stupid.

The only possible major contender -- so I'm not counting Tea Party fave Herman Cain -- who isn't as white as they come is Giuliani, who presumably would bring some much-needed arrabbiata to an otherwise bland and largely tasteless Republican primary.

Huckabee isn't a Birther, just a partisan ignoramus caught up in Birtherism and other crazy anti-Obama conspiracy theories

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mike Huckabee may not be a Birther, but what's with saying Obama grew up in Kenya if not to stir the bigoted right-wing conspiracy-theory pot?

Oh, he didn't mean it -- he apparently meant to say Indonesia, not Kenya.

But Obama only lived in Indonesia for a few years. He lived in Hawaii for much longer, both before and after his time in Indonesia.

So why not say that he grew up in Hawaii?

Well, while Hawaii may be an undesirable foreign place to some on the right, it's not nearly as foreign (in a dangerous, un-American way) to them as either Kenya (deep dark Africa) or Indonesia (jihadist Asia).

Sure, let's give Huckabee the benefit of the doubt and accept the excuse that he misspoke. But then why Kenya? Is it really an accident that he referred to the country at the center of the Birther craze? If he misspoke, it's only because he's deeply attached to that craze.

Consider what he actually said:

But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours...

So it wasn't just a passing reference -- and hence an easy mistake. This is straight out of Dinesh D'Souza. He didn't just say that Obama grew up in Kenya, he said that he had a Kenyan father and grandfather and that his views were shaped by the colonialist (and anti-colonialist) experience in Kenya. Actually, he grew up with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii. When he was in Indonesia, it was with his mother and her second husband, an Indonesian.

How could he possibly have meant Indonesia, as his spokesman suggests?

Personally, I'll take that excuse with a grain or two of salt.

Gunboat diplomacy again?

By Capt. Fogg

It may seem like old news at a time when this morning's Punch and Judy show is already old by lunchtime, but I've been taking a small vacation from blogging and improving my health by not immediately looking at the news every morning. I'm back, but old news is what I have for breakfast today.

I heard Mr. Huckabee lambaste President Obama last week on MSNBC for not parking the Navy off the coast of Libya so as to intimidate Colonel Qaddafi. Do we need any more evidence for the presidential unsuitability of the avuncular mediocrity who doesn't "believe" in science but thinks it's always better to look tough even when it defeats your purpose?

The mad Colonel has made capital out of standing between Libya and the imperialism of America and what better help could we give him in putting out his message that it's either his leadership or chaos?

I have either to think that Obama bashing is sufficient end in itself for Mike to forget about any possible benefit from a move toward liberal democracy in the Middle East, or that waving the flag is all one needs to do to rally the mob, but in either case the pronouncements of Mike Huckabee are all about the candidacy of Mike Huckabee and everything he says or does is designed to further that end rather than to offer any viable solutions to real problems. Just the kind of Bozo America loves to elect, isn't he?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Pence passes on presidential pursuit

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Right-wing Republican Rep. Mike Pence, trickle-down conservative, theocratic authoritarian, Tea Party fave, and one of the GOP's craziest and most outspoken leaders in the House, announced last night -- to the sort of triumphal fanfare usually reserved for ticker-taped astronauts (no, not really) -- that he will not (repeat: not) be running for president in 2012 and instead may run for governor of Indiana:

Pence's decision not to seek national office in favor of a likely run for governor of Indiana is a major blow to conservative activists and tea party leaders, who saw Pence as someone who could unite the traditional GOP base -- evangelical and social conservatives -- with the tea party's fiscal hawks.

And it's left a major opening for someone in a heavily crowded GOP presidential field: At the Value Voters Summit last year, Pence won the straw poll for both president and vice president, beating better-known candidates like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

Pence has a fair amount of support on the right, that is, in the mainstream of an increasingly far-right GOP, and his departure from a race that hasn't even started yet does indeed open the door for a Huckabee or a Gingrich (not likely) or a Palin (also not likely) to carry the conservative banner against Romney (trying so hard to be a conservative but not succeeding), Giuliani (a conservative on national security but with far too much moderate baggage from his New York past), and Pawlenty (presenting himself as a conservative but more midwestern pragmatist than right-wing ideologue).

But I look at it another way. I didn't think he could win, but his departure means we're that much closer to what is undeniably the dream Republican ticket for 2012:

Barbour-Bachmann!

It's just so perfect. And more Republicans wannabes who drop out, the more likely it'll be the reality we all want.

If this be treason...

By Capt. Fogg

The Republicans like to use the word "tyrant" a lot. Perhaps it's the same sort of tendency you find in liars and cheats and thieves of other types who use those words to describe those who threaten to expose them. Perhaps not, but I've noticed of late that there have been a lot of calls for summary and extra-legal executions coming from right-wing writers and hate-shouters like good ol' love thy neighbor Mike Huckabee or Foxboy Tucker Carlson, who "personally" would like to have had Michael Vick put up against a wall and shot even though dear justice loving Tucker professes to be -- you guessed it -- a Christian. Pardon me, but I'm confused.

If you find it hard to reconcile what you think you know about Jesus and non-judgmentalism and forgiveness with summary executions for animal cruelty, perhaps you're unaware of the overriding moral imperative of the Values Party: anything we do to undermine Obama and the Democrats is patriotic and is justified through patriotism because our word is law, not your damned Constitution. Barack Obama praised the NFL's Eagles for giving quarterback Michael Vick a second chance and of course Barack Obama is the Tyrant Prince of Darkness so if he does anything, it's a bad thing. Vick must die, even if those animal rights people are bleeding heart liberals and even if you don't give a damn about dogs.

Last Wednesday in my local paper, I suffered through a tortuous justification of summary execution for treason of the fellow who leaked those diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, the essence of which was that had he leaked different information under different circumstances at a different time, some terrible thing might have happened. That's the basis of Mike Huckabee's equally loathsome demand for twisting the treason definition to allow the Republicans to kill their critics for the crime of informing the public that our allies aren't our allies and the government doesn't know what it's doing.

Of course if someone were lying about the failures of our government, that would be different. They'd get a regular show on Fox like Huckabee and Beck, make the big bucks and none would dare call it treason. The truth is what makes it bad, you see.

Never mind that something is exposed that would cause us to hang a foreigner the way we did an Nuremberg for, if we do it, it's not a crime. A bit like saying that if your aunt had had wheels instead of legs she'd have been a bus and so she can be sued for not picking you up at the bus stop this morning even if you don't ride the bus and she has legs anyway -- and you'd see the logic of that if you weren't a damned Libtard lover of tyranny.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, the fellow who embarrassed the military with his Afghanistan videos of course should be put up against the same wall for revealing the incompetence of government, the lies, the cover ups, and perhaps the slaughter of innocents, because, after all, anything that doesn't cover up our misdeeds is treason unless the deeds have political importance for Republicans -- then anything is fair game and lawbreakers are heroes and patriots. Are you starting to get it? Criticizing the government is treason because it helps the enemy and there's always an enemy, don't you know -- except when the elite does it, of course, and you know who they are.

Yes, the government is corrupt, incompetent and can't do anything and so we're against it as long as that's actually false. If it's true and you prove it, you're a traitor and should be shot without due process. That's not tyranny -- a middle class tax cut is tyranny, ending insurance company abuse is tyranny, taking deadly contaminated meat off the shelves is tyranny, ending bigotry against law abiding citizens is tyranny, addressing schoolchildren on TV is tyranny as bad as anything Pol Pot ever did. Making BP pay for its incompetence is tyranny, and, if you don't agree, the unelected leaders at Fox want you dead and aren't embarrassed to suggest that you be killed. Sic semper tyrannis.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Elephant Dung #7: Huckabee calls out Palin over FLOTUS food flap

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By R.K. Barry

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.) 

You may have noticed that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took a little shot at Sarah Palin for her bogus claim that Michelle Obama doesn't want Americans to eat dessert – or some such nonsense. All of this was in the context of the First Lady talking about combating childhood obesity in America and the need to encourage children to consider healthier eating choices.

This is what Huckabee had to say:

With all due respect to my colleague and friend Sarah Palin, I think she's misunderstood what Michelle Obama is trying to do. Michelle Obama's not trying to tell people what to eat or force government's desires on people. She's stating the obvious: that we have an obesity crisis in this country. 

Palin was doing what she always does, which is to fire up her base by pointing to what she would consider an instance of government telling people what to do. In contrast, Huckabee was presenting himself as the voice of reason in defending Ms. Obama who was only suggesting the obvious point that public education about healthier food choices for our children is a good idea.

Okay. But what I found interesting is that this little flare-up, such as it was, comes only a few weeks after new polling indicated that Huckabee would give Palin a run for her money for the Republican presidential nomination and would appeal potentially to much of the same constituency, but also perhaps to much-needed voters beyond the base.

A Quinnipac poll on November 22 showed Huckabee in a statistical dead heat with Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. In a Marist College poll on November 24, Huckabee and Palin were virtually tied in popularity among Republicans who were not college graduates. But Huckabee pulled ahead significantly -- 18 percent to Palin's nine percent -- among respondents with college degrees. Huckabee came in second to Romney, who registered 25 percent among college-educated Republicans.

According to Janine Parry, director of the Arkansas Poll at the University of Arkansas, Huckabee is in a good position to separate himself from the rest of the pack.

His unfavorable numbers are significantly lower, he's penetrated the mainstream culture without becoming clownish, and he's demonstrated a willingness – even eagerness – to be a practical, truly bipartisan leader. In this environment and in a general election at least, those seem like substantial assets. 

Maybe this dessert flap is nothing. But it could be an early attempt by Huckabee to stake out some territory that takes in not only the conservative base but also independent voters, while Palin continues to say and do stupid things that appeal only to the same narrow constituency. 

I noticed a particularly idiotic comment on the Fox Nation website by an unnamed poster in response to Huckabee's statement, which said it all for me. It read: 

Governor, with your inability to see through to the real motives of the Obama's agenda to destroy freedom and America, you have lost my vote. 

There you have it. Taking away our freedom one double-chocolate raspberry cheesecake at a time.

The smarter types in the Republican Party understand full well that the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue does not go through Crazy Town.

Mike Huckabee seems to get this. Sarah Palin, and those who hang on her every word, not so much.