"You can't unblow a dogwhistle" or Why did Huckabee think Obama 'grew up in Kenya?'

[Swede]

Huckabee also flirts with post-birtherism, saying that he's "not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate" because "I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it." He doesn't want anger birthers by smacking the conspiracy down as idiotic, so instead he deduces that Obama was born in the U.S., not because Obama was born in the U.S. and it's stupid to think otherwise, but because the evil Clintons would have smoked him out if he hadn't been.

You can't unblow a dogwhistle like this, but a Huckabee spokesman tried to walk it back saying that, "The governor meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia," which (a) isn't true (he only lived there for four years) and (b) still doesn't make sense in the context of Huckabee's remarks about Churchill and"Mau-Mau guerrillas."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/03/why_does_huckabee_think_obama.html

[immoderate]

1. Huckabee does his prick thing.

And well.

--imm

[madmax]

2. From someone who is a Baptist minister

he's a major league asshole, hypocrit and general all around scumbag.

[Avant Guardian]

10. I work with a Baptist minister

He also is a major league asshole, hypocrite and a general all around scumbag. That is because they do not know where GOP ends and Christianity begins. They believe RW talking points and bible are interchangable.

[madmax]

15. I'm sorry for your daily pain.

;) Hang in there. :hug:

[Avant Guardian]

20. About ten months ago, he and I had a 'disagreement'

I am well known at work as the 'librul' one. I was just shooting the breeze with him in his office when the subject of abortion came up. He got all hyper and excited talking to me about it, asking me about my position. I just kept saying over and over, "Abortion should be legal, but I don't think people should use as a form of birth control." He would not hear my answer. He just kept getting more and more and more hyper and excited, cutting me off and talking over me every time I answered him. He started in with the frantic RW abortion questions, "What about the first trimester? The second trimester? What about the third trimester?...". I just kept saying, "Abortion should be legal, but I don't think people should use as a form of birth control." The whole 'debate' was absurd. He could not handle my position because it didnt fit neatly into the RW steered national debate (all that trimester bullshit that the right always harps about when talking about abortion.) And he couldn't handle it BECAUSE HE COULDNT DISAGREE WITH IT!

Over the next couple of months, he tried coming at me with easily shot down RW talking points whenever possible. Examples: One day he started claiming that our state deficit was caused by, 'socialism,' because we have a Democratic governor. I asked him, 'Give me an example of socialism that she has implemented.' Of course he couldn't, so he started in with the hyper excitement BS. He bragged that, 'Sarah Palin's Alaska' has so much extra budget money that they give it away to the citizens every year. I answered him, 'In Alaska everyone gets a check every year because they socialized their oil industry.' What could he say to that? He went mute then walked away red faced.

A few weeks later we were setting up an IT conference in a building at work, some electrical work had been done in the room recently. He said something like, 'Good thing the electrical work wasn't done by the government or a union, otherwise we would still be waiting, everyone knows that government workers and union workers are lazy and incompetent'. I shot back at him, 'you work for the government, Peter'. (We work at a state college). He stopped and thought for a second, then just said, 'Oh," and dropped the subject. Obviously he had never contemplated the issue beyond the bumper sticker slogans that he hears on Limbaugh and FOX.

After that incident, he started acting very condescending towards me. With the slightest disagreement on anything we were working on, he would get all hyper and excited, cutting me off and talking over me as if we were talking about abortion or something. It started turning into subtle attacks on my work ethic, capacity to multitask...etc. Finally one day I took him aside and told him, 'Peter, you do know that it is OK to disagree, don't you?' He started with the hyper bullshit again, so I just bluntly cut him off and told him that if he continued his escalating condescending hyperactive bullshit towards me I would sue him for workplace harassment. I told him I would be putting up with no more of his, 'unwanted, unwarranted, hostility,' towards me.

With that, the political talking points stopped and he started trying to be nice to me again, but in a walking on eggshells sort of way. To this day he acts scared of me. He occasionally tosses out a condescending remark, but afterward (upon realizing it) he acts all weird towards me for a few days. I just let his slip ups slide, I dont need the drama at work, but he acts deeply psychologically wounded by it all. He was a condescending train wreck for nine solid months because I had a mild disagreement with him. To me the whole thing was petty and pathetic. All I did was fire back on his talking points a few times, no big deal right?

I came to the conclusion that if you disagree with a republican they 'hate' you for it, and they never get over it, ever. And this guy is a fucking MINISTER.

I am one of two liberals in my department, the other one is our department director :)

[csziggy]

18. I had a Baptist minister as an uncle

And he was a major league asshole, hypocrite and general all around scumbag. He was the first person to show me the evils of racism by being a major league racist and vocal about it.

[whistler162]

3. Kenya Hawaii they are so close together....

isn't there a train that does daily trips between the two?

[gratuitous]

4. Oh, he just misspoke

Kenya, Indonesia, I mean, practically interchangeable on the Privileged White Guy Scale of Countries We Don't Give a Fuck About. He really meant to say Indonesia was a British colony, and experienced the Mau Mau uprising. Misspoke, that's all.

Tune in tomorrow when this appallingly weak and self-serving excuse is superseded by a story about taking too many cold pills.

[Avant Guardian]

12. How come only republicans misspeak?

[madmax]

16. His mouth piece can say that all he wants but,

it wasn't one sentence that he 'misspoke' he kept jabbering on. He owns it, he should apologize.

I remember McCain at least had the stones to tell a woman at one of his rallies who claimed Obama was a Muslim, 'no Ma'am, he's not.'

Let's beat the snot out of 'em. ;)

[yellowcanine]

5. Huckles meant to say that Churchill stomped the Mau Mau in Indonesia and that is why Obama gave the

Churchill bust back to the Dutch.

[LeftinOH]

6. Huckleberry is already a proud believer in creationism -which is plenty stupid

already. Nothing else he says is surprising.

[yellowcanine]

14. Huckles says he was "baited" to say this. Could someone "bait him" to say dinosaurs and humans

coexisted? :rofl:

Maybe he could be baited into making his Presidential candidate announcement at the Creation Museum.
This would nail down the fundy "GAWD-duh said it, I believe it!" vote for sure. (The Ken Ham one in Kentucky. There is another one called "Dinosaur Adventure Land" built by Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind in Pensacola Florida but unfortunately Dr. Dino is still serving slammer time for tax evasion I do believe. So as important as Florida is, that would not be politically wise.)

Creation Museum
"The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters and animals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings. Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Majestic murals, great masterpieces brimming with pulsating colors and details, provide a backdrop for many of the settings."


http://creationmuseum.org/

[Desertrose]

7. He spends too much time with Faux nooz nt

[Badfish]

8. Strange he only back tracked on Kenya....

Implying he thinks the Mau Mau revolution took place in Indonesia.

[Avant Guardian]

9. He is going down the same road that McCain went down

It is the catch 22 of being a republican in the 21st century. Either swim with the loonies or sink.

[somone]

11. Gee, all them people look alike anyway

[Cleita]

13. Huckabee knows better. His mission is to get his

ignorant and uninformed constituency to believe it. All this Kenyan BS is really racially motivated. There are still a lot of Americans who can't stand the fact that we have an African American as President, so accusing him of not being American born plays into their prejudice. They won't even want to know anymore than that. It just blew up in his face though when he connected this to Mau-Mau in Kenya and then tried to say he meant Indonesia. He forgot that not only the racist ignoramuses would hear what he said, but everyone else too.

[Yupster]

17. Here's my guess

D'Nish S'Souza (sp?) recently wrote a book entitled something like "The Roots of Obama's Rage" or something like that.

The thesis of the book is that Obama was brought up by his mother with heroic stories about his father, Barack Obama Sr. who was a Kenyan revolutionary. He talks about Obama's book, Dreams of My Father, where he says he went to his dad's hometown? grave? and promised himself he would follow his dad's dreams. Obama's grandfather was imprisoned by the British during the Mao Mao revolution.

So, my theory is that Huckabee either skimmed the book or had someone ranting to him about it, and he confused President Obama for the president's father. He wasn't confusing Indonesia and Kenya. He was confusing President Obama with his dad.

[Raine]

19. Huckabee a "minister" who doesn't know the 10 Commandments

9th Commandment ~ Thou shalt not bear false witness (LIE)~ Shame on him breaking God's laws, he better worry about ending up in hell fire if he keeps that up! :grr: :evilfrown:

[Avant Guardian]

21. The GOP is a cult

They are a religious cult where love of money has replace God as the object of adulation. The 'God' part serves only to excuse the greed.

[JuniperLea]

25. We were warned not to worship false gods...

Moses was pretty peeved about that golden calf...



I wonder what he would think of Bear Stearns...



Sorta creepy.

[yellowcanine]

22. And even if we were to take Chuckles at his word that he meant "Indonesia"

How is that any better? He is still casting Obama as an "other", not quite "one of us" based on where he spent a few years of his childhood. It really would not get him off the pandering to the lowest common denominator hook.

[treestar]

23. I want to see Huckabee's birth certificate

How do we know where he was born? Why should we just take his word for it? Come up with the original, long form, vault copy, Huck!

[JoePhilly]

24. Huck knew the GOP racist base was hungry, so he threw them some red meat.

GOP Southern Strategy, alive and well.