Feh.
*****
Reading Eugene Robinson this morning and he says that the hard choices in the election are now. Once we get to the general election, we will have a choice between a Democrat who will most likely promise to work in rescuing families from the sub-prime mess, remove us from Iraq, and try to take our foreign and domestic policy away from what Bush has led us into. In other words, the Democrats will try to be competent and not alienate the rest of the world.
The Republicans, on the other hand, seem stuck with bad or worse choices. Most want to continue Bush's failed economic policies of cutting taxes primarily for the wealthy, deregulating everything in sight--as we did with lenders (thanks, Bush). On Iraq, they are more likely to stay the course, and if the country was foolish enough to elect Rudy--more wars to come.
Robinson is too kind on Huckabee (in my view) and calls him a "mixture of social conservatism and economic populism." I think Huckabee is far more dangerous than that. Perhaps because he is willing to pander to all manner of dangerous people to win? The Cato Institute blog notes the kinds of people Huckabee is willing to raise money with--including some Houston wackjob by the name of Steven Hotze who signed on to this document:
We affirm that the Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the sphere of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science. All theories and practices of these spheres of life are only true, right, and realistic to the degree that they agree with the Bible.Reason, take a back seat to a fundy reading of the Bible. To say nothing of Huckabee cozying up to people like Rick Scarborough, who, if I am not mistaken, was the guy who said that God was removing great prophets from our midst (referring to Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy). Sigh. The same guy also said that the hpv vaccine
seems to signify that God's moral law regarding sexSigh.
outside of marriage can be transgressed without consequence.
Big Daddy Weave has a great post on the flag debacle that I linked to last night. He suggests that Huckabee actually doesn't believe in the racist position and quotes from an address he gave in Arkansas. But the fact that he would be willing to pander to the southern racists about their flag makes him even worse.
Anyone who thinks that Huckabee would make a good President needs to look at these people he surrounds himself with. Because electing him would be very similar to electing Jerry Falwell (liberals and gays caused 9-11) or John Hagee (bomb Iran now because God wants us to). Huckabee would make us remember longingly for the stupidity of George W. Bush.
2 comments:
I don't usually comment on issue related to the Confederate flag. I have heard all the arguments about the history and that it stands for state's rights and not slavery. I have also been told that since I am a Yankee, I just wouldn't understand.
The last part is true. I don't understand the appeal of the flag and why so many are fascinated by it. I know there were other issues involved in causing the Civil War, but slavery was one of the major ones. You just can't escape it. You also can't escape the fact that for many, that flag is a symbol of hatred and is offensive.
I agree with Huckabee in that the federal gov't lacks the power to compel a state to change their flag. That being said, I would have replied to the question by saying that if it were up to me, I would remove the flag.
In their laundry list of things that have to conform to their personal interpretation of the Bible, "arts and communication" strikes me as a particularly odd pairing to emphasize. There's some weird metaphysics going on there that I don't quite have a handle on.
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