HUCKABEE: There's one thing though that Biden and President Obama have got to get under control. And that is quit blaming George Bush. George Bush inherited an economy when he became president back in 2001 that was already beginning to show real signs of the stress from the breaking of the technology bubble. George Bush didn't go out whining and complaining every day, he stood up like the president of the United States and he worked on trying to get it fixed.
Remember how bad it was under Clinton? Having a job you had to go to and money to pay bills with sure was a drag. I mean, considering the fact that Clinton left Bush with the longest rate of economic growth and prosperity in our nation's history, you can see just how unfair it is for Obama to blame Bush for the economic clusterfuck he was handed on 1/20/09. Seriously. It isn't like Bush would have done that to his predecessor?
Oh. Wait. He did.
"When I took office, our economy was beginning a recession." - Bush, 8/7/02
"The president inherited a Clinton recession and turned it into the early stages of Bush prosperity." - Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, 9/2/04
"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession." - Bush, 1/12/09
Damned history. It constantly gets in the way of pretend reality we would love to live in.
Quit spending money so we can use it for tax cuts. That seems to be the root of every "Gov spending is evil" complaint.
Guess why the stimulus wasn't enough? It is because the crooked corporatists in the GOP just had to have 40% of the stimulus as tax cuts, tax cuts that return only cents for every dollar the Government invests into them, and tax cuts that mainly benefit only the rich. Nevermind that the Obama bailout itself went straight to the rich as well. And what did we get for the $300 Billion or so in tax cuts that the GOP demanded had to be in the stimulus? 3 measly votes.
The only thing better than having your cake and eating too must be making sure no one else gets cake and then telling them when they are mad "Let Them Eat Cake."
I thought religious people were supposed to be empathetic?
On the face of things, Mike Huckabee looks like a sane, rational person. Some even find that he has a certain charisma. I feel the same way about the carnival barker who sells elixir at the county fair. Sure he talks a good game, but if you buy his shtick watch out. The elixir selling carnival barker, much like Huckabee, is selling you crap, and, much like Huckabee and the rest of the GOP, if you want your money back you will never be able to find him again.
Remind me never to take political or economic advice from someone who doesn't believe in evolution or a woman's right to chose.
If it was up to Huck we would just cut taxes, halt Government spending on everything but the Military and Faith based initiatives, and pray for the Bush Depression to go away.
Good luck with that.
And for future reference, the next time someone ( especially if that someone is Mike Huckabee) thinks Mike Huckabee has advice for us on the economy or anything President Obama should do regarding the Bush Administration, would someone please tell him to Shut The Huck Up!
This will be really short. The Boston Globe reports:
Mike Huckabee, whose quips and one-liners livened up the Republican nomination race, has a new gig: political commentator for Fox News Channel.
Huckabee will regularly contribute to the "America's Election HQ" coverage, the network announced this afternoon.
"Governor Huckabee's campaign experience and knowledge of politics makes him a great addition to our ongoing election coverage," Bill Shine, Fox senior vice president of programming, said in a statement.
Huckabee's humor and homespun turns of phrase won't hurt either. One recent joke fell flat, however, when at the National Rifle Association conference last month, he quipped about Barack Obama ducking for cover when a loud bang sounded offstage while Huckabee was speaking.
In the days leading up to the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, millions of residents of those states (and of America) saw a now infamous advertisement from Hillary Clinton's campaign.
However, the "Red Phone/3 am" ad was mostly seen by viewers of news programs that broadcast the commercial for free. In effect, the media is providing millions of dollars worth of in-kind contributions to candidates in the name of reporting on the content of their ads.
It didn't begin with Clinton.
Brought to you by... News Corpse The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
And the Number two story on tonight's Countdown, an in-studio interview with the Lord of Flies himslf, Satan, on the presidential race. Good evening sir and welcome to the show.
Here are some observations on yesterday's vote. (There will be more in the days to come now that I have some time back after making around 1000 calls for the Obama campaign.)
Talking about Hillary is the main course in this diary, but would you like to start with an appetizer? Let's talk about Huckabee. The venerable NYT announces that Huckabee has been revived with a solid showing in the South. This is stupid. Why? Well, let's take a look at the GOP primary map. Huckabee is running out of South!
See, the problem with winning mostly just one section of the country is that after that section has voted in its primaries -- it doesn't vote again. (Michigan and Florida will, I predict, be exceptions to this rule, as the Democrats let them vote again in late May or early June, or perhaps hold caucuses or choose delegates at state conventions.)
So if you look at that map and try to find "South," you'll see that Huckabee has Louisiana coming up on Saturday (I predict he'll win), Virginia (only semi-South these days) next Tuesday, Texas (again not fully South) on March 4, and Mississippi on March 11. Even if he lasts that long, he won't last long enough to see North Carolina, Kentucky, or (counting the bottom part of the state) Indiana vote in May. So, Huckabee is not "revived" -- he has, instead, "shot his wad," although I don't think the NYT would include that in a headline. But they need a storyline, so there they go. Romney will still finish second when push comes to shove. I don't think either one of them will be on the ticket, though: look to Govs. Pawlenty or Crist or (my dark horse, if Rudy can swallow it) Pataki for that.
Is anyone else running out of a precious electoral resource? Why, yes! Pretend you didn't already read the title and look below the fold.
In a stunning political development this evening according to the Associated Press, the Florida Supreme Court has intervened in the Florida Republican Primary and declared George W. Bush the winner over Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee.
Senator John McCain, ever the patriot and loyal soldier, had this response
I knew in my heart of hearts that I'd never be able to win in a state full of geezers. Even so, I'm delighted that the prize deservedly went to President Bush. In anticipation of this development, I hopped on a plane to Washington, DC and personally congratulated the President. The voters of Florida have chosen wisely.
One of the key buzzwords of this Presidential race is change. The voices of change cumulated in a Democratic victory in 2006, and since then, the voices of change have only gotten louder and louder. Supposedly. And yet, when we look at the front-runners for the election, we see that the conventional candidates -- Hillary Clinton and John McCain -- are poised to take the nomination starting with Super Tuesday. A showing below 15% in South Carolina could doom John Edwards, while both Hillary and John McCain are leading by substantial margins in California. While the Republican primary is a lot messier than the Democratic primary, it seems that with his wins in South Carolina and Louisiana, Mike Huckabee's home turf, it seems that McCain is an odds-on favorite to take over the Republican nomination.
This brings us to the question of change -- do we really want change? The buzzword of this election has been change, yet we see the two establishment candidates, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, establishing themselves as frontrunners in the primary. It seems that people on both parties say that they want change, yet saying that they want change and actually having the courage to vote for change are two different things. It is a lot like a bad relationship -- we say that we want to break up, yet when it comes time to actually do it, it is much more comfortable to stay in the relationship than it is to make a clean break and start over. We say that we don't like where we are and want to move and make a fresh start; however, when it comes down to do it, we are more afraid of the unknown than we are of staying in a bad situation.
Meet Mike Huckabee. He's a Republican Party front runner for president of the United States of America.
I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards.
So Huckabee wants to change the U.S. Constitution to add a "human life amendment" and an amendment to define marriage as between a human male and a human female. Why? Why should America's secular law be based on Southern Baptists' interpretation of their translation of the Bible? How is this any, any different than Islamists who wish to install sharia law?
Seldom have we seen a politician who so relished and justified the grisly business of state killing. Mike Huckabee actually brags about his willingness to kill. And justifies it by talking about Jesus.
Mike Huckabee has started to cite the 16 executions he oversaw as Arkansas governor in his presidential campaign, pointing to them as a type of experience no other candidate in the Republican race can claim.
It's a grisly claim to make, but Huckabee is trying to counter Mitt Romney's attacks that he is soft on crime.
"The 16 people I carried out execution on in Arkansas would hardly say I'm soft on crime," Huckabee told supporters while campaigning in Indianola, Iowa, over the weekend.
Last week he made a similar statement to voters in Pella, telling them, "Ask the 16 people on which I carried out executions."
The implication is this: Huckabee is tough and will kill. Romney is weak. He has not killed as governor.
If this were isolated tough talk it would be disgraceful enough. But, in fact, it's part of Huckabee's long willingness to act as executioner.
MANCHESTER, N.H., Dec. 28 PRNewswire-USNewswire -- The assassination of Pakistani opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto not only underscores the dangerous and heightening political volatility throughout the entire Middle East, it should also send a message to U.S. voters about the importance of electing leaders whose foreign policy records and pronouncements reflect sound judgment in mitigating hostilities, not contributing to them.
Did I dream this New York Times story up? Is this really April Fool's Day? Am I having hallucinations?
Mike Huckabee used the volatile situation in Pakistan Friday to make an argument for building a fence on the American border with Mexico and found himself trying to explain a series of remarks about Pakistanis and their nation.
On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: "We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country."
On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks.
"When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border," he told reporters in Pella. "And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders."
What The Huck? Nevermind, as the Times points out, that "far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam, according to recent estimates from the Department of Homeland Security."
Am I dreaming? Wake me up. Please. Is this a flashback from Midsummer's Night Dream?
I have had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and
methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was
It doesn't get any crazier, does it? This guy is really off the hook.
He reached over and turned the radio up. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Freedom requires religion"? "Religion requires freedom"? WTF was this pendejo saying?
Right, you stupid guero, Jesus thought. Just like the freedom the Afghans had under the Taliban. Or the Jews had under the Inquisition. And "religion requires freedom"? What the heck? What was it that all those Jews in the camps were practicing?
Jesus shook his head.
Would it never stop? Would these pinche politicians ever quit using so-called "religion" to sell their weaselly lies?
Mr. Reid, I know you are tired of getting these letters, but I offer you a ray of hope tonight. I offer you validation from the Republicans in their Presidential debate this evening. When you are looking for justification for bringing a plan to end the mistakes of the Iraq War to the Senate floor, look no further than presidential hopeful, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.
Now, truth be known, my guy in this fight is Ron Paul. And he, as I am sure you know, is against the war. Always has been. Well, tonight he got into a tangle with Huckabee as to if it is time to end this war. Huckabee, though a decent man, was using the old "you break it, you bought it" stance. Paul, as you know, is strict on the Constitution and wants out.
March on Washington
