Mike Huckabee Defends Obama On Birther Claims, Religion, And Jeremiah Wright Issues
I’m no Mike Huckabee fan, but I will say I’m glad to see that he said this in an interview with a Christian magazine:
According to a Pew survey last August, 29 percent of evangelical Christians believe Obama is a Muslim, while only 27 percent think he is a Christian. Who or what is at fault for this misperception, and do evangelical attitudes/beliefs need to change?
He’s been very expressive in his statements, even at the Saddleback Forum when he ran in 2008. He spelled out very clearly what his view was, and frankly, it’s inappropriate , wrong-headed, and not helpful to the overall discussion when people try to say he doesn’t have a birth certificate or he’s a Muslim. To me that demeans the entire real discussion—what is he proposing and whether it’s good for the country—that ought to be the centerpiece for our entire conversation, not what did he hear when he sat in church. If people went back and heard every sermon I heard when I was a little kid and some of the more fundamentalist pastors were yelling from the pulpit at me, if they took every one of those sermons and lifted out of them certain phrases and things, it could be scandalous, but only out of the context of the bigger picture. That’s why I thought that a lot of the focus on Jeremiah Wright was misplaced.
Good for you, Governor.
I guess he truly has given up on the thought of running for President next year, then.
By all account Gov. Huckabee is a reasonable guy. I don’t agree with him on a lot, but on many issues he takes understandable positions.
As to whether or not he’s running, one read of these statements is that he is, and he thinks he’s got a chance of getting at least as far as VP, and he’s already getting out in front of certain issues in his past that he thinks might come back to haunt him with independents (who on some level still remember all of the R. White controversies).
I think things like following statement he made present more problems for his presidential prospects than his menschy remarks about birtherism and Rev. Wright:
“If you’ve been around a lot of Jewish people, particularly from New York, they tend to be very opinionated, very animated,” he said. “I felt like I was sitting between Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen — it was really interesting; it was surreal.”
Maybe he hasn’t quite shaken off the stuff he heard from those fundie preachers as a kid.
But then, Biden did manage to survive the “clean and articulate” fiasco, so you never know.
Kylopod,
“I think things like following statement he made present more problems for his presidential prospects than his menschy remarks about birtherism and Rev. Wright:
“If you’ve been around a lot of Jewish people, particularly from New York, they tend to be very opinionated, very animated,” he said. “I felt like I was sitting between Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen — it was really interesting; it was surreal.””
In the general election, maybe. In the Republican primary, no way, no how.
How is his comment about NYC Jews any different than President Obama’s comment “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion,” which is one of the most bigoted things Ive seen in recent times?
If you are in the DC area, ever been around Takoma Park or Silver Springs MD around sunset on a Friday? The Orthodox are part of Western Culture, yet separate, because they want to be. I have no problem with that.
And probably half the folks I’ve known from NYC have been “opinionated,” more-so than folks from the other parts of the country (hmmm, mostly know Catholics from NYC). I don’t see this as a big gaffe on Huckabee’s part, not that I’d ever vote for him.
How is his comment about NYC Jews any different than President Obama’s comment “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion,” which is one of the most bigoted things Ive seen in recent times?
Somehow I doubt that.