Perhaps McDonald’s should offer a McHuckabee Burger: a little beef with lots of baloney and ham. Topped with nuts.
Mark March 2011 as the date when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee forfeited his emerging position as a more thoughtful conservative who had started to get the ear of many independents, moderate Republicans and centrist Democrats. By saying Barack Obama grew up in Kenya (Obama didn’t), didn’t have as an American upbringing as most Americans who were in the Boy Scouts (earth to Mike: not every American kid is in the Scouts) and attended a madrassa (debunked by CNN in 2007) Huckabee has become just one more pandering conservative scrambling to join the cast of the new, birther-produced, live-action version of “Looney Tunes.”
Any day now I’m expecting a talk show host to say, “Well, if Obama didn’t go to a madrassa, then he wore a madras jacket!”
But wait: rather than sticking just one foot in his mouth, Huckabee next firmly inserted the other by criticizing Oscar-winner Natalie Portman’s pregnancy because she’s not married, a far cry from his words of kindness when Sarah Palin’s unwed daughter became pregnant. He and his handlers later walked each zinger back, unconvincingly claiming he was misunderstood.
What was Huckabee up to? Some analysts think he has no intention of running, even though he’s in the top ranks of preferred candidates among GOPers in 2012 Presidential polls. Some think he’s trying to sell more books.
The problem:
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.