Fox News gave Mike Huckabee a nice Christmas present today of hyping his potential 2016 presidential campaign. In yet another Fox News Sunday show devoid of Democrats, Wallace lobbed image-enhancing softballs at his colleague. But Huckabee may have tripped himself up on the one semi-challenging issue: His ridiculous comparison of President Obama’s early opposition to same-sex marriage to Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson’s graphic attacks on homosexuality.
Wallace opened his interview with this slobbering introduction:
Mike Huckabee is fond of saying he is a conservative, he’s just not angry about it. His folksy brand of politics made him a surprisingly strong candidate for president in 2008 and a surprise drop out last time.
Well, now, he is surprising people again, talking about running for president in 2016.
There followed a series of prompts from Wallace for Huckabee to air his potential presidential platform. Wallace explored Huckabee’s opposition to ObamaCare and possible GOP alternatives as well as his views on economic opportunism. Even though, as an ex-governor and current talk show host, Huckabee has no official role nor inside vantage point on either. But Wallace suggested otherwise in this puffball of a question:
Part of your appeal, if you do run, is that you’re a populist who is concerned about reaching out to minorities, to working class folks who don’t typically or certainly in the last election, didn’t vote Republican. And you’re also, like the president, interested in income inequality.
But there were also the comments on Duck Dynasty’s Robertson which, I suspect, will be the biggest takeaway.
Wallace plugged Huckabee’s Facebook page set up in support of Robertson and asked “Why is this such a big deal to you?”
Huckabee said that “political correctness” has forced “traditional… steadfast, old-fashioned Biblical Christian values which are also, by the way, values of traditional Judaism and Islam,” to “just shut up and keep that to yourself.”
Huckabee went on to say that he’s tolerant of people who support same-sex marriage “but I’m not tolerant of the intolerance.” But I guess that depends on what your definition of “tolerance” and “intolerance” is. Because Huckabee’s record is not all that tolerant. He has referred to homosexuality as “the ick factor,” suggested that Democratic voters are going to hell and likened Muslims to “uncorked animals.”
But then Huckabee tried to liken Robertson to Barack Obama:
When anyone says something that holds to the same position that Barack Obama held in 2008 when he, at the Saddleback Church with John McCain, made it cvery clear, that he opposed same sex marriage and he said he did so because he was a Christian and because of his biblical views. Well, if that position was OK in 2008, how come it isn’t OK in 2013 or 2014?
In fact, President Obama has changed his mind and has publicly supported same-sex marriage since May, 2012. Plus, Robertson was talking about homosexuality in general, not same-sex marriage. Yet Wallace did not correct the record.
But, in a moment of gentle pushback, Wallace noted that it wasn’t just Robertson’s disagreement with same-sex marriage but how he said it. Wallace quoted Robertson’s words about homosexuality as well as his offensive comments on race (which Huckabee somehow ignored). “Were you not offended by any of that?” Wallace asked.
Huckabee excused Robertson by suggesting that he was just a "regular guy" - and then blaming the whole controversy on gay rights organizations. Yet Huckabee also immediately distanced himself from Robertson's racial remarks:
Well, (Robertson) said it in a way that would be a little more – probably appropriate for the duck woods than it would be for the pages for a major news magazine. By the way, I will say that I think I saw the world of the south (and Jim Crow) a little differently than maybe he did growing up in south Arkansas, but that being said, this issue was never about those comments. This issue is specifically about GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign protesting to A&E over his comments regarding same-sex relationships.
Of course, the Duck Dynasty controversy has spread way beyond the protests to A&E. If Huckabee doesn’t want to admit it, that says almost as much about him as the comments said about Robertson.
Not that that will do any harm to his candidacy on Fox News. Wallace closed by saying, “Governor, I’ve got to say, if you do run for president, I suspect you’ll be a very formidable candidate. We want to thank you so much for coming in today.”
And then Wallace plugged Huckabee’s new website.
My comment was removed! Ha! Ha!
They just can’t take it over there!!!
Not only that, but when Obama said he wasn’t in favour of gay marriage in 2008, he outright said that he doesn’t support gay marriage, but he thought Proposition 8 was unnecessary because gay people shouldn’t have had their rights prohibited like that in the first place. Here’s what he said:
“I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think [Prop 8 is] unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.
[…]
If they’ve got benefits, they can make sure those benefits apply to their partners. I think that’s the direction we need to go in. I think young people are ahead of the curve on this for the most part. Their attitude, generally, is that we should be respectful of all people, and that’s the kind of politics I want to practice."
In other words, even when he didn’t support gay marriage like he does now… he still saw the bans and the “war on marriage” as an infringement on the rights of gay people- Something that clearly offended him, even back then.
Meanwhile, Huckabee’s record for gay rights stands as only of the third most blatantly homophobic in all of broadcasting. I’m dead serious- For all the venom many RW media personalities spew, in my book, it goes: Huckabee, Starnes, Limbaugh. Highest volume, most sincerity, and often (not always), the worst comment of the day came from one of them.
Wow! This is traditional steadfast old fashioned Bibical Christian values?
“They’re full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, god haters, they are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless, they invent ways of doing evil!”