In The Blogs

Mike Huckabee Seems Like a Reasonable Dude

| Thu Mar. 20, 2008 2:22 PM PDT

No, not on AIDS patients or environmentalism. He's pretty nutty on that. I mean on the importance of race, pastors, and surrogates in a campaign:

HUCKABEE: [Obama] made the point, and I think it's a valid one, that you can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do. You just can't. Whether it's me, whether it's Obama...anybody else. But he did distance himself from the very vitriolic statements.

Now, the second story. It's interesting to me that there are some people on the left who are having to be very uncomfortable with what Louis Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell, or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word for word by pastors like Reverend Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say "Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that."

That explains why he wouldn't release his sermons to us. More Huck after the jump. Plus video.

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JOE SCARBOROUGH: But, but, you never came close to saying five days after September 11th, that America deserved what it got. Or that the American government invented AIDS...

HUCKABEE: Not defending his statements.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, I know you're not. I know you're not. I'm just wondering though, for a lot of people...Would you not guess that there are a lot of Independent voters in Arkansas that vote for Democrats sometimes, and vote for Republicans sometimes, that are sitting here wondering how Barack Obama's spiritual mentor would call the United States the USKKK?

HUCKABEE: I mean, those were outrageous statements, and nobody can defend the content of them.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But what's the impact on voters in Arkansas? Swing voters.

HUCKABEE: I don't think we know. If this were October, I think it would have a dramatic impact. But it's not October. It's March. And I don't believe that by the time we get to October, this is gonna be the defining issue of the campaign, and the reason that people vote.

And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

MIKA: I agree with that. I really do.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's the Atticus Finch line about walking a mile in somebody else's shoes. I remember when Ronald Reagan got shot in 1981. There were some black students in my school that started applauding and said they hoped that he died. And you just sat there and of course you were angry at first, and then you walked out and started scratching your head going "boy, there is some deep resentment there."

Comments

Submitted by Robert M Silver (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 3:03 PM PDT.

Every time I hear a white person who is concerned about Barak Obama's failure to disassociate himself from Reverend Wright I wonder when whites are going to disassociate themselves from all their ancestors who owned slaves, supported Jim Crow laws or used the N word as a regular part of their speech. And I include the founding fathers who failed to stop slavery in its tracks. For most of American history this "great" nation allowed slavery or Jim Crow to be the law of the land. And it was white people who made it that way, to be more specific it was white males who practiced not only hate speech, but a hateful life for all people of color in the United States. So this double standard where Barak Obama is supposed to disavow the man's words and the man is just white racisms double standard all over again.

Submitted by capt (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 4:12 PM PDT.

My dad was a racist, rest his soul, my uncles and a few other surviving family members are able to use terms and words that make me cringe.

I try to make clear that kind of thinking is dead wrong - how could I disown or disavow family?

I think every church has some very crazy sounding ideas and whatnot.

Pentecostals speak in tongues (as do a few others) Mormons wear specific garments, etc.

I think it is all most people can do to sit through most and sermon and very few have ever agree 100% with a sermon - wouldn't that be preaching to the choir?

Barack was speaking to all of us, just not everybody is listening.

Submitted by Austin (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 5:35 PM PDT.

I agree with capt. If we as Democrats (or centrists) espouse the idea of tolerance, we must allow the association of Obama to his pastor go unchecked; we are not electing his pastor, we are electing Obama.

Chalk this crisis up to the national media making a shit-ton of money off of blowing up an unfortunate situation. There should never even have been coverage of this.

Like capt, most of my family is somewhat racist, at least to the point of "blacks are just different," and a few are alarmingly racist, to the point of "blacks are stupid." But if I were running for election, I could never disavow my family.

And at the end of the day, we don't know Obama's relationship to his pastor. He may be more casual acquaintence, or he may truly consider him to be family.

Submitted by Franklin Grimes (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 5:38 PM PDT.

Abe Lincoln said he wanted to see a peacher whom "looked like he was fighting bee's".Well, that old Pastor Wright looked like he was fighting the Devil, and while he may have gone a little over the top, so what? Look at the lies GW and his crew have been throwing down, how many people have they got killed? I didnt hear Pastor Wright telling anyone to go kill someone. Last time I checked Free Speech is defended in the Constitution. I say, go on Brother, lay down that scripture, I want to hear more.

Submitted by roddenberry (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 7:20 PM PDT.

No doubt,Obama is the right man at the right place at the right moment after the bushian catastrophe

Submitted by MR (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 7:26 PM PDT.

Huckabee's statement, 'And I think that you have to cut some slack..' is the right medicine. Be it race, religion or the middle eastern real estate business, cut some slack to those who had faced the worst. Let them know you are there to help while not accepting their point of view politely.
Unfortunately, of the three areas I mentioned above, I am most pessimistic about such a change of attitude in middle-eastern real estate business, for it is a commercial enterprise, much like the good old East India Company.

And yes, It did strike me that Huckabee seems like a reasonable guy, I hope it is not posturing for a VP ticket.

Submitted by JP (not verified) on Thu Mar. 20, 2008 11:54 PM PDT.

Wow, this might be the first time I've agreed with Huckabee on something. Good for him, seriously.

Submitted by bizona (not verified) on Mon Mar. 24, 2008 1:14 PM PDT.

I think Obama said exactly what needed to be said in his speech. I also think Huckabee is viewing this the correct way.

As for Robert M. Silver's comparison between Obama/Wright vs. "whites"/"their ancestors".....that's a weird comparison. I mean, I've never met these ancestors, never listened to them speak, never went to church with them. I never knew them, never behaved like them and never believed what they believed. In short, I never really knew there was an association, so I guess that's why I never thought to "disassociate" myself from them.

However, since it obviously ruffles your feathers, Mr. Silver, consider it done. I officially disassociate myself from my ancestors who were racist, bigotted and/or slave owners. I imagine that won't make you feel better, though. You keep focusing on that and sniping from the sidelines. I'm going to go along with what Obama suggested and talk to people, listen to them and try to find some common ground with which to work with.