Mike Huckabee visited Your World yesterday where host Neil Cavuto did his best to spin Mike Huckabee’s now infamous comments about women’s libidos and “Uncle Sugar.” Or, as Cavuto put it dismissively, “this libido thing.”
Cavuto started by suggesting Huckabee was the victim of some liberal cabal: “You immediately were ripped by others on the left, and even some establishment …Republican party types said your word choice was wrong. Could you explain it, and where you were coming from?”
Huckabee reiterated the stance he took a few weeks ago on Fox:
It was an affirmation of the equality of women. The fact that I think women are equal, they’re capable, they’re educated, they’re competent, it’s why Neil I appointed more women to positions of executive level in my government when I was a governor than any governor in my state’s history, including Bill Clinton. Why? Because I didn’t see that gender made them less than any man that I could’ve selected.
So my whole point was to say, when the Democrats pretend that women are helpless victims of their gender, I find it demeaning. And as far as the people who said, “You shouldn’t have said that,” look, Neil, I refuse to let the Democrats control my lexicon. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to live in a world where everything I say has to be run through the filter of people who aren’t going to like anything I say. What’s the point of that?
As News Hounds previously pointed out, while Huckabee insists he admires women so much, he has yet to explain why he thinks they have been foolish enough to get duped into believing by Democrats that, as Huckabee originally said, “they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government.”
Not surprisingly, Cavuto didn’t ask.
Instead, Cavuto seemed to be trying to prod Huckabee into saying he had spoken inartfully. “What were you saying with the libido thing?” Cavuto asked.
“It was just a colorful expression,” Huckabee said. “My point was not that I believe this but I said the Democrats act as if women are only concerned about these reproductive issues. Well, I think women are concerned about safe schools and good schools for their kids, about good jobs that pay well, about their kids being able to go to college and afford it, about having a park near their home that won’t be filled up with a bunch of drug needles and predators.”
Cavuto acknowledged, “I could see what you were saying.” Then he suggested Huckabee’s comments are similar to the new Fox/GOP strategy of dredging up Bill Clinton’s sex scandals - i.e. some kind of further proof of Democratic callousness towards women that will supposedly erode their support for the Dems.
So Cavuto praised Huckabee for telling Republicans not to cede the women’s vote. But, Cavuto continued, “If you had to do it again - the libido part of the comment - would you take back?”
“Probably not. No, why would I?” Huckabee replied. “What’s wrong with it? Even the word, it’s a wholesome thing. God gave us sexual drive, it’s not something dirty and vulgar.”
Cavuto returned to the “liberal media victim” strategy along with a little push for Huckabee’s hypothetical presidential run. Noting that Huckabee is “high up in the polls,” Cavuto theorized that that’s why the “libido” comments garnered the attention they did. Had he said them six months ago, Cavuto didn’t think they would have made a stir.
So instead of considering how or why women might have been genuinely offended, Huckabee waived the offense away as illegitimate and Cavuto suggested it was all about politics. So much for personal responsibility. And maybe the women's vote, too.
Go spend a few hours looking over the last 5 years of GOP attitudes towards women. Look at how they’ve been so quick to denounce the ACA’s covering birth control (not to mention how they’ve, well, misrepresented is too nice a word considering they’ve lied outright about it) and how businesses should be exempt if they have a “religious objection” to it—while COMPLETELY ignoring how Viagra and Cialis are covered by most insurance plans, even the ones available through the ACA. (And don’t forget how the GOP have gone out of their way promoting the idea that pharmacists should be permitted to NOT fill birth control prescriptions if they hold a “religious objection” to birth control.)
Furthermore, go back and look at how the GOP (through their fuhrer, Rush Limbaugh) chose to LIE about Sandra Fluke’s testimony (before the all-male House committee). Her testimony involved a friend of hers who needed birth control pills for other medical reasons but all the GOP could do was demonize Ms Fluke and basically call her a wanton slut who wanted the government to pay for her birth control.
You can disagree all you want but you’re wrong. Huckabee IS denigrating women but he’s claiming it’s the Democrats who are responsible for that denigrating.