Mike Huckabee - Talking Points Pro

Todays edition of Meet the Press started off with an appearance by Mike Huckabee - Republican Governor from Arkansas. The man was well rehearsed and answered each question in a through robotic manner. Apparently by the time he got to speech class at Hope High School - they had ceased teaching the section on pause and contemplate your answers. Or maybe that just came natural to Bubba.

Some excerpts from the interview - with a few snippets from us.

GOV. HUCKABEE: Tim, tomorrow I’ll be filing papers to launch an exploratory committee, and yes, I’ll be out there.

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think America needs positive, optimistic leadership to kind of turn this country around, to see a revival of our national soul, and to reclaim a sense of, of the greatness of this country that we love, and also to help bring people together to find a practical solution to a lot of the issues that people really worry about when they sit around the dinner table and talk at night.

Eamon: With Ricky Santitorium and George Allen knocked out, the wingnuts need a canidate that is bit more rational and easier to appear moderate. This would not be Brownie (The Senator) Of course he says all this, and then later as we find out - this man has no issues with the way GWB has run this country. So what we really have here is the status quo.

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s try to define who you are. The last time we talked it was on a—my CNBC show. I asked you about George W. Bush, and you said this, “I think the president has done a magnificent job. And generally, you know, I don’t find that many areas where I would disagree with him.” You still hold that view, Bush has done a magnificent job?

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I think he’s had a lot of struggles, particularly in managing the, the war in Iraq. We did a great job of going in and toppling Saddam Hussein. The tough part has been bringing some sense of stability there. And so it’s been a struggle for the president. I think the domestic agenda has also been something that’s almost been ignored and overlooked because we have spent so much of a time on Iraq.

Eamon: GWB has a domestic agenda? Of course he just glazed over this queston. A struggle in Iraq? Apparently he differs little with GWB on anything.

MR. RUSSERT: If you were in the Senate or the House, would you vote to oppose the president sending more troops to Iraq?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think that’s a dangerous position to take, to oppose a sitting commander in chief while we’ve got people being shot at on the ground. I think it’s one thing to have a debate and a discussion about this strategy, but to openly oppose, in essence, the strategy, I think that can be a very risky thing for our troops.

Eamon: So keeping them over there in the middle of a civil war is not considered risk?

MR. RUSSERT: Is there one area you disagree with President Bush?

GOV. HUCKABEE: On Iraq or on...

Eamon: Tim is being polite - are you or are you not a rubber stamp for GWB?

MR. RUSSERT: On anything.

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I think we need to be very careful about the overuse of the Guard and the Reserve in our military. As a governor for 10 ½ years and commander in chief of our Guard, I’ve seen 80 percent of our Guard forces deployed to Iraq. Now we’re talking about sending them back yet again and again. These are citizen soldiers. They didn’t sign up to be gone all the time. They signed up to be soldiers called upon for extraordinary duty, and they’ll—they’ve done it. They’re willing to do their duty, but the toll that it’s taking on their families, their employers and their communities is—it’s beginning to really wear.

Eamon: So he has drank the koolaid. Good to know this now.

MR. RUSSERT: So “read my lips, no new taxes”?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think you got to be very careful. I, I wouldn’t propose any new taxes. I wouldn’t support any. But if we’re in a situation where we are in a different level of war, where there is no other option, I think that it’s a very dangerous position to make pledges that are outside the most important pledge you make, and that is the oath you take to uphold the Constitution and protect the people of the United States.

Eamon: Nice - leaving it open for the tax increase. How else will any President pay GWBs tab.

MR. RUSSERT: I was reading a lot about you, an ordained Baptist minister.

Eamon: Great! Another Catholic basher! We remember Dr. Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention calling the Holy Father a false prophet.

GOV. HUCKABEE: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask you a couple things that you said earlier in your political career. “Huckabee ... explained why he left pastoring for politics. ‘I didn’t get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.’” And then this: “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.” Would you, as president, consider America a Christian nation and try to lead it as—into a situation as being a more Christian nation?

Eamon: egads! Yet another Theocrat! Lock and Load!!

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think it’s dangerous to say that we are a nation that ought to be pushed into a Christian faith by its leaders. However, I make no apology for my faith. My faith explains me. It means that I believe that we’re all frail, it means that we’re all fragile, that all of us have faults, none of us are perfect, that all of us need redemption. We are a nation of faith. It doesn’t necessarily have to be mine. But we are a nation that believes that faith is an important part of describing who we are, and our generosity, and our sense of optimism and hope. That does describe me.

Eamon: Non Christians and Seculars need not apply. - oh yeah - he thinks it's dangerous - yet there is this lingering philosophy he has about bringing Jesus to the masses. (great if he sticks to his career as pastor)



MR. RUSSERT: South Dakota had some proposed legislation to outlaw all abortion except saving the life of a mother, no exceptions for rape or incest. You said you’d sign that. Why?

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I always am going to err on the side of life, Tim. I believe life is precious. But I think the issue for many of us who are in the pro-life camp—and I have been since, you know, I was a teenager. This is not something that I’ve been all over the board on, it’s consistent. It’s because of my view that God is the creator and instigator of life. But I think those of us in the pro-life movement, we have to do also some growing and expanding. We have to remind people that life, that we belive it begins at conception. It doesn’t end at birth. And if we’re really pro-life we have to be concerned about more than just the gestation period. As a pro-life person, as a governor, look at my record. Yes, did we pass pro-life legislation? We did. But we also did things that improved the environmental quality and the conservation issues that would affect a child’s air and water. We also made sure that he had a better education, that access to affordable health care would be better. So I think that real pro-life people need to be concerned about affordable housing, we need to be concerned about safe neighborhoods, access to a college education. That, for me, is what pro-life has to mean.

Eamon: Been reading the Eamon Blog Governor? - We always like to say "There are things we can do to help the unborn right now - like expand health care coverage, education, adoption programs, ease the economic burdens on working families, and address endemic problems of greed, violence, sex, corruption, and materialism in our society. " Interesting that he mentions the enviroment - but no mention of the greatest moral question of our time "Global Warming".

MR. RUSSERT: But, as president, you would seek to ban abortion.

GOV. HUCKABEE: I would seek always to promote the view that life is precious and should be protected. Would I be able to singularly do that? Of course not. But I think it has to be won on, on a battlefield of one heart at a time rather than pieces of legislation at a time.

Eamon: So - more of the same - we did have a glimmer of hope in the previous answer. Bummer

MR. RUSSERT: You said this to the Des Moines Register: “Let’s face it. In our lifetimes, we’ve seen our country go from ‘Leave it to Beaver’ to ‘Beavis and Butt-head,’ from Barney Fife to Barney Frank.” Why, why include Barney Frank, a gay congressman, in that reference?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think it was a matter of a rhetorical device to talk about the different cultural shift that we have, and it wasn’t any particular attempt to be derisive of him. But, but there has been a huge cultural shift in this country, Tim. And I think that’s why many Americans are seeking leadership that has a positive and optimistic spirit, that wants to take this nation—what I call vertical politics rather than horizontal.

Eamon: Apparently he hates gays.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about a controversial aspect of your governorship. Wayne Dumond...

GOV. HUCKABEE: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: ...a rapist who was convicted, sentenced in Arkansas, the parole board voted not to parole him in September of—in August of ‘96. You announced that you were going to commute his sentence, and then the parole board reversed course and agreed to parole him, and you supported their decision to parole. He was, was freed, left the state, killed and raped someone else in Missouri. Do you regret supporting that parole?

Eamon: Apparently this was not ok behavior in 1988 for Micheal Dukakis.

MR. RUSSERT: David Broder of The Washington Post wrote this column in 2005:

“Huckabee ... is part of a bewildering variety of networks. A preacher for 12 years, he headed the Arkansas Baptist State Convention before being elected lieutenant governor and succeeding the scandal-tainted Jim Guy Tucker as governor in 1996. But at 1 a.m. last Sunday, he could be found wearing a Hawaiian shirt, playing bass guitar and leading his rock band of fellow Arkansans, called Capitol Offense, at the [National Governor’s Association] staff party at Raccoon River Brewing Co., a downtown beer hall.” And we have found this footage, governor.

GOV. HUCKABEE: Uh-oh, I’m in trouble now.

MR. RUSSERT: I believe—let’s take a look.
GOV. HUCKABEE: OK.

(Videotape of Governor Huckabee playing guitar)

GOV. HUCKABEE: This is from Memphis, by the way, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, I believe that song is “Born To Be Wild.” Is that your inner self?

GOV. HUCKABEE: It probably would be born to be mild would be a better one for me. I love music. One of the things that I’m very passionate about is music and art and education because it was life-changing for me. I think in a creative economy we’ve got to have a whole group of kids coming up and a generation whose left and right brains are stimulated. It’s something I pushed for as a governor in Arkansas where we are one of the few states that required both music and art education. I’m a musician, I’m passionate about it, but I think this, this country has made a huge mistake in cutting music and art out of school budgets. And it’s something we’ve got to address because the future economy is dependent upon a creative generation.

Eamon: Great! Maybe he can undo the damage Reagan did to arts in public schools and the NEA.

Read the entire transcript