Our political Quote of the Day comes from ex-GOP Presidential contender and Fox News hit political personality Mike Huckabee on his fellow GOPers and Barack Obama:
Asked whether he second-guessed himself over his decision not to run for president, Huckabee really went for it.
“Republicans can’t decide what they want to be when they grow up,” he said, adding, “I know they want to beat Obama, but in the process, they want to tear each other up so much, they want to savage each other so much that it will be difficult to beat Obama.”
“If I ran,” Huckabee continued, “it would be because I wanted to bring some ideas to the race, but I realize that will not be the focus. It is how mean can a person be.
“I don’t want to savage Barack Obama,” he said, later adding, “I think he’s a decent, patriotic American. He loves america different than me, but I don’t doubt he loves America.”
It should be noted that Huckabee wasn’t always on such a high road where President Obama is concerned. I guess it’s easier to be nice from the sidelines.
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher is correct: when it looked as if Huckabee might run he showed he could play the demonization game as well as anyone in his party. But unlike some candidates it wasn’t as if that was his whole political menu.
And you wonder: with comments this reasonable about Barack Obama, does Huckabee have a longterm future at Fox? (CNN: do you have a contract ready?)
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.