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Anti-Gay Diatribe Opens Huckabee, Vander Plaats Event In Iowa

Submitted by Kyle on February 26, 2010 - 1:49pm

Let's say you have several minutes to fill before your featured guests, Mike Huckabee and Iowa gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, arrive at your event and take to the podium to speak.

What do you do?

Well you give that time to local radio host Jan Mickelson to spend several minutes railing against gay marriage, of course, just like the Iowa Family Policy Council did earlier this week:

Christians can’t “tolerate” same-sex marriage because to do so would be to give up beliefs and accept the homosexual lifestyle as “healthy and normal,” radio host Jan Mickelson said while introducing GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at a public event Wednesday.

Mickelson was addressing a fundraiser for the Iowa Family Policy Center. The influential social conservative organization has formally endorsed Vander Plaats’ campaign and vowed to sit out the November election if he’s not the candidate.

“Personally, I think two guys pretending to be sexual mates are making a mistake,” he said. “More than that, they are violating the design of their bodies. More than that, they are sinning against their maker. More than that, they are likely to shorten their lives in this world and impair their destinies in the next.”

...

Mickelson quickly turned his attention to the current situation in Iowa, saying that because a “a liberal court, a liberal legislature and a liberal governor” are standing up for same-sex marriage, groups like the Iowa Family Policy Center, and candidates like Vander Plaats, must resist.

“I’m really up for it,” Mickelson said. “I’m really up for this ruckus.”

Then Mickelson turned the podium over to Huckabee and Vander Plaats.

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CPAC Strikes Back At Huckabee

Submitted by Kyle on February 22, 2010 - 1:50pm

I don't know if Mike Huckabee intends to make another run for president in 2012, but if he does, I have to say that I find his strategy of attacking and alienating conservative groups rather confusing. 

As we noted earlier, for this first time in the last several years Huckabee skipped CPAC and explained that he did so because the event was becoming too pointless, corrupt, and libertarian.

Not surprisingly, CPAC organizers did not take too kindly to Huckabee's slam:

The organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference are hitting back at former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who argued over the weekend that the annual convention's influence among conservatives is waning.

CPAC is becoming "increasingly libertarian and less Republican," Huckabee told Fox News on Saturday, one reason he said he decided not to attend this year.

But that claim is not true, said David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which has organized CPAC for 37 years.

"We were frankly a perplexed by Governor Huckabee's comments about CPAC given our long and cordial relationship with him and his family," Keene said in a statement provided to CNN.

Keene said Huckabee could not appear at the conference due to a scheduling conflict with his television show. At no point, he said, did Huckabee express concerns about the legitimacy of the event.

"We offered him several time slots, but on December 18th received an email from his scheduler saying essentially what the Governor's daughter told reporters over the weekend," Keene said. "The email from Kristin Dulin, the Governor's Director of Scheduling, said that he wouldn't be able to join us because he would have to be in New York to do his show, but assured us that he 'appreciates the invitation and hopes that you have a wonderful event.'"

Huckabee, who finished a disappointing tie for sixth place in the CPAC presidential straw poll, also accused the conference of being a "pay for play" event, not "truly grassroots."

Keene said the governor "has been misinformed."

"Many of those invited are from groups that are neither co-sponsors nor financial supporters of the conference itself," he said in the statement.

Since he lost the GOP primary to John McCain, Huckabee has attacked several high-profile Religious Right leaders and organizations by name, accusing them of being sell-outs and fundamentally irrelevant.

Of course, Huckabee lost to McCain due in large part to the fact that he couldn't get the support of these influential groups and individuals.  As such, it is rather hard to understand how he expects to be able to get their support next time around, should he decide to run again, when he's intent on spending more time attacking them than trying to win them over.

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CPAC: Paul Wins Straw Poll While Huckabee Dismisses Event As Meaningless and Corrupt

Submitted by Kyle on February 22, 2010 - 9:05am

While watching CPAC last week, I was wondering to myself why Mike Huckabee wasn't participating?  Did organizers decide to snub him by not inviting him or did he snub the convention by refusing to attend? After all, Huckabee had been given a speaking slot in the main auditorium each of the last three years.

But this year Huckabee skipped the event and blasted it as pointless, corrupt, and too libertarian:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday as outdated, nearly corrupt and unrepresentative of the conservative movement.

Huckabee, a 2008 Republican presidential contender and potential 2012 candidate who had spoken at the conference for years, said the reason he blew it off this year was that the meeting has become dominated by libertarian activists.

“CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years, one of the reasons I didn’t go this year,” Huckabee said in an interview with Fox News, where he is a paid analyst and has his own show.

He was responding to a question about whether he was upset by his single-digit showing in the conference’s straw poll, which was won by libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

But it wasn’t the only criticism the Arkansan leveled at CPAC.

Huckabee said the rise of the tea party movement had “taken all of the oxygen out of the room,” rendering the venerable conference far less relevant than it had been in previous years.

“Where CPAC was historically the event, the tea parties are having their own events all over the country and a lot more truly grassroots people are getting involved because of the tea parties,” said the former governor.

And, goaded by Fox Host Geraldo Rivera, Huckabee went even further.

“Because of the way that it solicits sponsors, it’s almost becomes a pay-for-play,” he said. “It’s kind of like, who will pay money to be able to be a sponsor and get time in the program. That’s one of the things that has hurt its credibility in the last couple of years.”

I have to say that I agree with Huckabee's assessment that something has happen to CPAC when Ron Paul is winning its straw poll. 

For the last three years, the poll has been won by Mitt Romeny with Paul hovering around 10% ... and this year Paul beat Romney by almost ten points.  In recent years, Paul has largely been treated as a sideshow by the conservative establishment which viewed him as far outside the mainstream of the movement but tolerated him because he had a relatively small but extremely dedicated base of support that somewhat overlapped with the movement in general.

The fact that Paul could pull in 10% of the vote at CPAC in previous years was generally a source of embarrassment to organizers. This year, Paul won (and organizers were utterly mortified.)

If that doesn't signal that the conservative movement has completely lost it bearings, I don't know what does.

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You Can Spend $4000 and Twelve Days Helping to Bring About The Next Great Awakening

Submitted by Kyle on February 16, 2010 - 2:34pm

I have spent over a decade analyzing and monitoring the Religious Right and I have to say that I have never seen anything like this upcoming "Next Great Awakening Tour," which is a $4000, 12 day right-wing tour of the East Coast hosted by David Barton, Jim Garlow, and David Lane in which participants will visit "the sites of the 1st and 2nd Great Awakening, while praying for the 3rd." [PDF]

The "Great Awakenings" of the past have been times of nationwide religious revival and it is sites that played important roles in previous religious and political awakenings throughout Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC that participants will be visiting:

We welcome you to a truly great tour. Jim has led several church history tours in Europe and some in the US and David Barton has led over 200 tours in Washington, DC and others on the East Coast. We believe this NEXT GREAT AWAKENING TOUR is the most significant tour we have ever led or heard of. When you consider the line-up of speakers, this is the finest tour of its kind. This is a most unique tour.

But, of course, this is not a strictly spiritual journey, but rather a political one judging by the special speakers the event has lined up [PDF], including Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Harry Jackson, and others:

Special lectures by

Governor Mike Huckabee (NY) “Overcoming Obstacles to an Awakening”

Newt Gingrich (DC) “Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation’s History and Future”

Scott Rasmussen (NJ), nationally known founder of the Rasmussen Poll, “My Spiritual Odyssey”

Congressman Bob McEwen (DC) “Biblical & Timeless Foundations to Civil Government: Renewing the ‘Mind’ of Government”

Senator Rick Santorum (DC) “The Moral Foundations for Our Nation”

Tony Perkins (DC) “Spiritual Renewal & Public Policy”

Dr. Robby George (Princeton) “The Manhattan Declaration: A Blueprint for Spiritual Renewal”

Dr. Ken Minkema (Yale) “Jonathan Edwards & the 1st Great Awakening”

Billy Wilson (Philadelphia) “Practical Steps for Awakening America”

Gabriel Joseph (DC) “A Conversation About Indicators for Spiritual Renewal – Data and Survey Results”

Lance Wallnau (Philadelphia) “Strategizing Cultural Transformation”

Dr. Joseph Mattera (NY) “Components of Cultural Transformation”

Christopher West (DC) “Sexuality, Marriage & Spiritual Awakening”

Maggie Gallagher (DC) “The Importance of Marriage in America’s Needed Spiritual Awakening”

Bishop Harry Jackson (DC) “Renewing a Nation through High Impact Leadership”

Christopher Anderson (Madison, NJ) “National Awakenings Under John Wesley and Francis Asbury”

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Huckabee: My Love Of Jesus Has Not Been Tainted By The Obama Girl

Submitted by Kyle on February 16, 2010 - 10:30am

Apparently, The Obama Girl was on Sean Hannity's TV program last month discussing her current views of President Obama (she says she is no longer infatuated with him and gives him a grade of B-minus) and during the interview suggested that she liked Mike Huckabee.

So shortly after that, Huckabee had her on his own Fox TV program ... and, as a result, he's now being forced to explain to his supporters that having her on his program doesn't mean he is "abandoning Jesus."

Seriously: 

[Amber Ettinger, the Obama Girl,] was a guest on this show a couple of weeks ago, but her appearance sparked a very strong and mostly critical reaction. Much of the heat was directed at me for what the viewers perceived as abandonment of my Christian principles.

I don't hide the fact that I am a Jesus person -- a true believer in Him. My show will always treat faith in a positive and encouraging way. It's not a religious show, nor is the Fox News Channel a religious network, but our viewers tend to be typical of most Americans, which means they believe in God, traditional moral values and love their families and country ... To those who felt that her brief appearance on my show signaled my abandoning Jesus, I strongly beg to differ. Some of the e-mails forcefully stated that Jesus wouldn't have anything to do with Obama Girl — I guess because of her song or her attire. I must have read a different version of the New Testament, because Jesus was all about focusing on the very people that the religious people rejected, whether ne'er-do-well tax collectors like Zaccheus, a woman at the well caught in the very act of adultery, Mary Magdalene (who had a salacious reputation) or even social outcasts like lepers. Jesus said that like a physician, he didn't come for the people who were feeling all good about themselves, but for the sick. He didn't come for the righteous, but for the sinners.

By the way, Amber Ettinger did not come across at all like some wild child. I wish all people her age were as polite, gracious and well-informed as she is.

For me, being Christian doesn't mean that I isolate myself from others; it means that I know that I too am a sinner and so I don't mind associating with people who are different than me. I figure if Jesus can love and forgive me, he must love everyone, and if He loves somebody, the least I can do is love them too.

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Mike Huckabee's Friends And Associates

Submitted by Kyle on February 9, 2010 - 10:46am

Because I think it is important to keep pointing out the sorts of Religious Right leaders that Mike Huckabee regularly associates himself with, I just wanted to post this clip from a recent episode of "Huckabee" that featured Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel taking about text books in Texas:

This weekend Mathew D. Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, will appear on Mike Huckabee’s show to discuss potentially dramatic changes to the framework of textbooks that are being discussed by the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE). Huckabee and Staver will be revealing suggested changes, some of which are still under discussion. TSBOE will soon finalize the language that textbook publishers use to align their textbooks to current standards. As Texas is a leader in textbooks, most other states purchase the same educational materials. The show will begin at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday and 2:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, Eastern Time.

Some of the suggestions that have come forward at various times include:

* Removing references to Daniel Boone, General George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day, and Christmas.
* Including the cultural impact of hip hop music, ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow, and the Hindu holiday of Diwali.
* Replacing the term "American" with "Global Citizen"– stating that students need to be shaped "for responsible citizenship in a global society" without any mention of citizenship in American society.
* Replacing expansionism and free enterprise with imperialism and capitalism.

...

Mathew Staver commented: “To have a bright future we must know our past. Those who want to reshape America begin by rewriting our past. We repeat the mistakes of the past when we are ignorant of them. America has a rich past founded on Judeo-Christian values. To forget them, or worse, to distort them, will doom our future. That is why the textbook controversy in Texas affects every American.”

Staver has long been close to Huckabee, having served on his Faith and Family Values Coalition during his presidential campaign. 

Recently, Staver made news when it was announced that Liberty University would be withdrawing from CPAC due to the fact that a gay conservative group was allowed to sign on as a co-sponsor, which made sense considering that at last year's CPAC, Staver declared that marriage equality would inevitably lead to an entire generation of violent criminals. 

Staver and Liberty U will also be hosting a 2-day anti-gay summit later this week, while Staver and Liberty University also represented Lisa Miller, the who kidnapped her daughter and disappeared rather than abide by court ordered custody arrangements.

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Huckabee Climbs Aboard The Tea Party Bandwagon

Submitted by Kyle on January 26, 2010 - 11:20am

It seems that Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts has turned Mike Huckabee into a Tea Party true believer. 

A few months back, when tea party activists were making the Doug Hoffman/Dede Scozzafava the proving ground for ideological loyalty, Huckabee was conspicuously absent until the very last minute when he jumped in over after Scozzafava had dropped out.

Similarly, in the Brown race, Huckabee basically sat on the sidelines, but in the wake of his win, Huckabee is suddenly climbing aboard the tea party bandwagon, first claiming that members of Congress "should be tarred and feathered as the original tea partiers would have done" and now declaring that "The Tea Party Movement is Changing America" and that he is thrilled to be a part of it:

The 21st century Tea Party movement is changing America. That’s not an overstatement, it is a fact.

The original Tea Party happened on December 16, 1773, when 5,000 patriots gathered at the Old South Meeting House, a site used for both worship and politics. Our Tea Party ancestors tossed the tea overboard to protest “taxation without representation” because they weren’t permitted to elect a member to the British parliament.

Today we have seen our government turn a deaf ear to the people, pushing through bailouts and stimulus spending without representation. For months they’ve tried their best to push through a health care bill that few wanted, only to be stopped again this time by the Massachusetts Tea Party and the election of Scott Brown on January 19.

But mark my words: Congressional Democrats and President Obama haven’t given up.
Now we are hearing rumors that the Senate may try to use reconciliation to get around the filibuster. Just another procedural maneuver to thwart the will of the people. Every member of Congress knows in their heart that the American people don’t want the health care bill that Congress has before it and yet they continue to push for it out of arrogance.

The Tea Party movement was started by Americans insisting on fiscal responsibility in government, limited government based on the Constitution, and the free market system. They played a large role in the town hall meetings in August, at which lawmakers got an earful, they helped propel Republicans to victory in Virginia and New Jersey in November and again this month in Massachusetts. Now it’s time for the Tea Party patriots to step up again and help raise the pressure on Congress to bury Obama-care once and for all. I know they will. And I will step up with them.

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Huckabee: Bring Back Tarring and Feathering

Submitted by Kyle on January 25, 2010 - 2:17pm

I realize that Mike Huckabee fancies himself a real man-of-the-people, but I never expected his right-wing populism would take the form of calling for citizens to start tarring and feathering members of Congress ... but that's exactly what he did in this commentary on Fox show this weekend:

Scott Brown's defeat of Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate campaign on Tuesday was a second Boston Tea Party as tons of Democrat hubris, elitism, and paternalism were dumped into Boston Harbor.

Our colonial ancestors tossed that tea overboard to protest "taxation without representation" because they couldn't elect a member to the British parliament. We've gone far beyond taxation with representation -- we've got bailouts without representation, boondoggle stimulus spending without representation, unconstitutional health care mandates without representation.

Critics of today's growing tea party movement argue that Americans have their two senators and congressperson. But that's not how our system looks to the tea partiers. They believe that the lobbyists on K Street have 100 senators and 435 representatives, and they don't have any.

The lobbyists support both parties. They know that the sausage Congress makes has different seasonings depending on whether the Democrats or Republicans are in power. It may offer the flavor of heavier or lighter federal control, but the ingredients are the same. It's still made from pure pork and we feed the pig.

President Obama's promise that health care negotiations would be broadcast on C-Span helps explain why the country elected him -- he spoke to our hunger for fixing the system. Watch the YouTubes of him making that promise and look at the audience members, at how their faces light up. President Obama's failure to keep his promise helps explain why a center-left state like Massachusetts elected Scott Brown.

The way health care was negotiated, the special interests had all the seats at the table behind the locked door in the secret room, and we the people, we the patients, didn't have any. It's as if we all played a game of musical chairs, and the American people were left standing when the music stopped.

On December 16, 1773, the morning of the Boston Tea party, 5,000 patriots gathered at the Old South Meeting House, a site used for both worship and politics. It was God's House and the People's House. The colonial leaders had no embarrassing back-room deals to hide either from God or their followers. Today our leaders are too ashamed to conduct their business in front of the people, let alone God.

Every member of Congress knows in his gut what's in the people's interest and what's in K Street's interest. If you think your real boss is some smug guy in a corner office with his Gucci loafers up on a mahogany deck and not the folks back home, those folks who voted for you, who gave you 25 or 50 hard-earned bucks, who put up yard signs and made calls for you, you deserve to lose. Shame on you, you shouldn't just be fired, you should be tarred and feathered as the original tea partiers would have done. That's my view and I welcome yours.

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The Scariest Thing You'll See All Day

Submitted by Kyle on January 22, 2010 - 1:01pm

Obviously, polls taken two-plus years before the next presidential election don't mean a whole lot, but that probably won't stop Mike Huckabee's supporters from trumpeting this:

For the first time in one of our monthly polls looking ahead to the 2012 Presidential election Barack Obama trails one of his hypothetical opponents, albeit by the smallest of margins.

Mike Huckabee has a 45-44 advantage over Obama, aided largely by a 44-38 lead with independents. There continues to be no evidence of any negative fallout for Huckabee after murders of police officers committed by an ex-Arkansas inmate whose sentence he had commuted. His 35/29 favorability breakdown is actually slightly better than it was in November before that incident.

Of course, just yesterday Huckabee warned the GOP to not "get too giddy" because President Obama will probably be re-elected.

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Porter And Huckabee: Together Once Again

Submitted by Kyle on December 15, 2009 - 9:31am

Even though Janet Porter believes that President Obama's government is planning on rounding up conservatives and send them off to internment camps as part of a plot to commit mass genocide against Americans through the swine flu vaccine, she still manages to get Republican and conservative leaders to appear at her gatherings and on her radio program.

Yesterday it was Mike Huckabee, who appeared on the program to hawk his latest book. Despite her radical views, it's not really all that surprising that Huckabee would join Porter on her program considering that he was a keynote speaker at her How To Take Back America conference earlier this year and that he had tapped her to serve as the co-chair of his presidential campaign's Faith and Family Values Coalition.

Porter opened the program with a lengthy defense of Huckabee's handling of the Maurice Clemmons clemency case that was based almost entirely on Huckabee's own defense, which seemed rather odd until you remember that Porter believes Huckabee to be the "David among Jesse's sons" that they have been longing to place in the White House.

In fact, Porter told Huckabee that they ought to have another Values Voter Debate to highlight his standing as the chosen one and keep voters from supporting "candidates of compromise" like they did during the last election.  

Porter and Huckabee then took some calls from listeners.  The first questioned Huckabee's past statements about the Rifqa Bary case, to which replied that he is now much better informed thanks to people like Mat Staver and John Stemberger and is now "very sympathetic" to her case. 

The second caller questioned Huckabee's membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, which has always figured heavily in right-wing conspiracy theories, and Huckabee assured the caller that he has "never been affiliated in any way" with CFR , to which Porter replied "that's encouraging to know":

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