Bound to lose . . .

I've been missing lately. I could dissemble: "Working to hard . . . family stuff... blah blah." Fact is, I'm heartsick abou the direction our nation and our discourse is taking.

Watching Mike Huckabee on The Daily Show tonight was a changing moment. Huck was, to me, a conservative christian with whom I disagreed about everything, but whom I thought was a decent honest guy.

I was wrong. Huck is a dishonest self-aggrandizing whore who will say anything to further his agenda. Of late he has become a newly minted birther:

Well, that didn't take long. Just one week after calling the birther conspiracy theory "nonsense," probable GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee raised concerns of his own about the president's upbringing, in an interview with a conservative New York talk show host. In an appearance Monday on the Steve Malzberg show, the Fox News personality and former Arkansas governor appeared to sympathize with his host's questions about President Obama's citizenship, and then floated a theory of his own: Obama was raised in Kenya. Per Media Matters:

"I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American."

But don't worry, he's not a birther:

"The only reason I'm not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons [inaudible] and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and 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."

Huckabee went on to explain how Obama's Kenyan upbringing imbued him with an anti-British worldview radically different than most Americans. (You know, like the guys who wrote this anti-British screed.) Media Matters has the full audio here.

And tonight exposed himself as a tenther as well:

. . . the tenth one was explicit, that if it was not contained in the constitution, that power is left to the states (note: my transcription from the Daily Show video)

Here's a description of "tentherism" from a liberal writer whose work I enjoy:

These efforts are all part of a movement whose members are convinced that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits spending programs and regulations disfavored by conservatives. Indeed, while "birther" conspiracy theorists dominate the airwaves with tales of a mystical Kenyan baby smuggled into Hawaii just days after his birth, these "tenther" constitutionalists offer a theory that is no less radical but infinitely more dangerous.

Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the "True Constitution," exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government's powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama's health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The federal minimum wage is a crime against state sovereignty; the federal ban on workplace discrimination and whites-only lunch counters is an unlawful encroachment on local businesses.

Tenthers divine all this from the brief language of the 10th Amendment, which provides that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In layman's terms, this simply means that the Constitution contains an itemized list of federal powers -- such as the power to regulate interstate commerce or establish post offices or make war on foreign nations -- and anything not contained in that list is beyond Congress' authority.

The tenther constitution, however, reads each of these powers very narrowly -- too narrowly, it turns out, to permit much of the progress of the last century. As the nation emerges from the worst economic downturn in three generations, the tenthers would strip away the very reforms and economic regulations that beat back the Great Depression, and they would hamstring any attempt to enact new progressive legislation.

Such retreat to fringe constitutional theories is one of the right's favorite tactics during times of historic upheaval. The right-wing South justified both secession and the Civil War on the theory that the Constitution is nothing more than a pact between sovereigns that each state is free to leave at will. In the immediate wake of Brown v. Board of Education, 19 senators and 77 representatives endorsed a "Southern Manifesto," proclaiming -- in words echoed by modern-day tenthers -- that Brown "encroach[es] on the rights reserved to the States" because the "Constitution does not mention education." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent much of his first term combating a tenther majority on the Supreme Court, which routinely struck down substantial portions of the New Deal.

So thanks, Mike for exposing once and for all who you really are: A do-anything, say-anything zealot, with only the conviction of fundamentalist religion to fall back on.

Mike Huckabee, the Donald Trump of . . . oh well, never mind.

I'll be your baby tonight

Just watched the charmingly disarming and alarmingly dishonest Mike Huckabee on The Daily Show debate anti-abortion/pro-choice with John Stewart.

I was surprised to find that when society allows us to terminate pregnancy because of potential economic hardships, we will inevitably slide down the Randian slippery slope to a day when elders, who may cause economic hardship, will be placed on an ice floe and sent into the Arctic Sea to die. Because real people who are living real lives are the exact equal to a fertilized egg.

Look, I can understand if you believe that sacrosanct life begins at conception. I think you're wrong, but that's OK. But use logic & honesty to convince me, not sophistry and straw man arguments. That makes you look dumb, and makes me angry. And that makes me far less inclined to take you seriously.

And Huckabee's argument is actually with himself, based on that idea. No true liberal, dedicated to the common good, would ever even dream of offing an elderly person for convenience. Rigid Libertarians and hard-hearted Conservatives might, however.

As Barney Frank famously said, conservatives "believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth".

Here are all 3 parts of the interview. I present, you decide. And sorry about the commercials.

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



And watch Huckabee's dishonesty about stem cell research when Stewart questions him about IVF. Huckabee clearly has his talking points arranged in his mind, and has no interest in an actual give-and-take debate.

And lastly, how many times have pro-choice people killed anti-abortion people? Anyone, anyone?

Bastard.

Update: Removed all the extraneous html from Comedy Central so that videos would actually, you know, play.

Now you say you're sorry, for being so untrue

As an alleged musician, Mike Huckabee pulled a particularly tone-deaf move Wed. night, crossing a union picket line to appear on "The Tonight Show", and play bass with Kevin Eubanks' band.

Earlier in the day, he claimed not to know he was crossing a picket line, and that he supported the striking WGA members:

"The governor would only agree to join Jay ... for the taping after he was assured that no replacement writers were being used," said a statement issued by Huckabee's campaign.

"Gov. Huckabee believes that the writers deserve to be fairly compensated for the sale of their work.

Smoooove, Mike. While my union, the AFM (American Federation of Musicians) issued no formal statement, the delusional Machinist's Union, who had endorsed Huckabee, said this:

Governor Huckabee should not cross the picket line. We have made that abundantly clear to his campaign. With such missteps, he risks losing the support his jobs and economic policies have won for him among trade unionists who will attend the GOP caucuses in Iowa or will vote in the later primaries.

Sorry, kidz. Huckabee may be hated by the Club for Growth for raising taxes in Arkansas, but he's no friend of working America.

Much can be said about the diminished power of the unions, and that leads in to the actual point of this post: the WGA strike.

First, here's the WGA on Huckabee's appearance on Leno:

The Writers Guild is disappointed that Mike Huckabee crossed the WGA picket line today at NBC. We welcome the statements of support he has made for striking writers, but we ask him to respect our picket lines in the future and urge the media conglomerates to return to the bargaining table to make a fair deal that will put writers and the entertainment industry back to work.

Was Huckabee legitimately confused? Nah, not so much. From the WGA blog:

However, when the reporters told Huckabee he was incorrect and the WGA had only made a separate deal with David Letterman's company - and not the Tonight Show - Huckabee pled ignorance: "But my understanding is there's a sort of dispensation given to the late-night shows, is that right?"

Uh...no.

And when the reporters tried yet again to tell Huckabee he was flat out wrong? His response: "Hmmm. Oh."

Indeed. What the strike is about has been discussed many times. I think (and hope) all progressives, as well as people who work in the arts, support the writers in their bid to participate in potentially vast future profits from streaming internet broadcast, and other new forms of content distribution. But who exactly are the players on the other side, the AMPTP?

First, they are not producers at all. Instead, they are media conglomerates and studios who own content. This AMPTP site lists all signatory companies; among them are ALL film studios and networks, and in their own words:

member companies include the production entities of the studios, broadcast networks, certain cable networks and independent producers.

Here's an explanation of how the networks became "producers":

It started in 1995 when the Federal Communications Commission abolished its long-standing "finsyn" rules (that's financial interest and syndication, for those unfamiliar with the term), allowing networks for the first time to own the programs they broadcast. Before that, under classic antitrust definitions, the networks had been confined to the role of broadcaster, paying a license fee to production companies for the right to broadcast programs just two times. The production companies owned all subsequent rights. In the mid-1990s there were 40 independent production companies making television shows. If a particular network didn't like a show -- as famously happened with "The Cosby Show" many years ago -- the production company could take it to another network.

But not after 1995. The abolition of the old rules set in motion an ineluctable process, one that has negatively affected every creative person I know in television. Today there are zero independent production companies making scripted television. They were all forced out of business by the networks' insistence -- following the FCC's fin-syn ruling -- on owning part or all of every program they broadcast.

This is a must-read article, especially for anyone who is still confused by why the "producers" and the writers can't just get along.

Finally, as a retort to poor confused Mike Huckabee, here are three more versions of the title song. Which do you think is the best?

Julie London, the original, featuring Barney Kessel on guitar and Ray Leatherwood on bass at the top, or Ella, with guitarist Joe Pass:



Lulu, with guitarist Jeff Beck(!):



and Diana Krall:

Two Faced People, How Wicked You Are

So I hear that Mike Huckabee (my favorite bass hack du jour) has decided to cross WGA picket lines to chinwag with Leno, blow smoke up each others heinies and pretend to be relevant to more than 20% of the registered voters for 8 minutes between commercials.

Why, he might even take it to the stage and emotionally bowdlerize a classic rock ditty to show how 'with it' he is to the Viagra generation.
Bet he watches his hands when he plays those demanding 8th notes in Born To Be Wild again.

An assumption here, that his semi-pro gig with Capitol Offence is a non-union one, so the AF of M local may not have an interest in what might be viewed as scabby behavior - But the Writer's Guild asked him not to come on, and he ignored them...Real salt of the earth sentiments there.

I am utterly unenthused with this 'aw-shucks-I-didn't-know-I'm-just-a-simple-God-fearin'-country boy-a'governoratin'...' stance that Huckabee puts forth.

It's redefining pious credulity as willful stupidity.

He loves having it both ways...Letting some killer free to strike again so as to appease Clinton haters while donning a saintly mask of forgiveness...Touting some miracle diet as the source of his prodigious weight loss while secretly having alleged bariatric surgery performed...Telling reporters about his high-minded decision not to show an attack ad against one of his opponents - Then showing it to them so they'll talk about it and make him look like such a wise shepherd while his noxious talking points float in the room like a lazy, wet fart ...Indicating his awareness of the work action by WGA on the very show he is scheduled to be on, then pretending he doesn't know a picket line is in place.

Golly gee shucks, what's a simple man to do?

His supporters might do well to ask themselves - Is that your candidate...Really?
If so, which of the two faces he has will you be voting for?

But still I fear and still I dare not, Laugh at the Madman

Not that I want to pile on Mike Huckabee (and there's nothing gay about that statement), but what the heck, he's such an easy target.

My friend Nicole Belle at Crooks & Liars wrote yesterday:

Mike Huckabee is desperately trying to prove that he has more on the ball than Bush had back in 2000 when he couldn’t name the leader of Pakistan. Talk about setting a low bar for yourself.

So when asked about a foreign policy statement made several months ago that focused more on Pakistan than the then-neocon terrorism target-du jour, Iran, Huckabee insisted that his perspicuity was the result of “prophetic” understanding of our challenges in the “War on Terror”™.

See, this is Huckabee speaking in code. When a right-wing fundie says "prophetic", he's not speaking any more about the main prophets. Instead, today, he's speaking of Revelations, the acid-trip at the end of the Bible that they're always trying to define. And even this is code, because within all the "number of the beast" stuff and other verbiage, the bottom line is Israel, all Israel all the time.

And even that is the height of hypocrisy, because the evangelicals think Jewish folks are going to Hell. It's just that the Bible mentions a few times that Jews are the "chosen people", so the fundies want to stay in their good graces, because the fear is that when it all comes down, the Rapture (invented, BTW, in the 1800's) and the second coming, the Jews may just have some advantage that Christians don't have access to.

That's the whole reason for the evangelical support of Israel; it may be to the Christian's celestial benefit to have kosher friends at the end of times. Even if they're going to hell. Too bad for them.

I'm just a Huck, a Huck of burning love

(image by the illustrious darkblack)

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly has a good round-up of the hackery of the Huckabeast:

Earlier this month, he didn't know what the National Intelligence Estimate was. A week later, the former governor identified Thomas Friedman and Frank Gaffney as his biggest influences on foreign policy, despite the fact that Friedman and Gaffney don't actually agree on anything.

This week, any shred of credibility Huckabee maintained on foreign policy quickly vanished. In the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, the Arkansan's first reaction was to argue that the slaying should lead to a reevaluation of U.S. immigration policy. Of course, the assertion didn't make any sense.

Indeed, it's been a particularly embarrassing couple of days for Huckabee. He argued that "we have more Pakistani illegals" entering the U.S. than any other nationality, aside from Mexico. That's not even close to being true. He said the Pakistani government "does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists." He meant western borders.

It's often said the politicians should be judged not on what crap they spin on the campaign trail, but rather on what they have actually done. And that applies as well to Huckabee. Here's what he did in Arkansas:

It all began 16 years ago for Mike and me. Huckabee, in his political debut, was preparing to become the Bible-thumping, abortion-decrying Republican challenger to U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers, the Democratic incumbent. With a playbook straight out of James Dobson, he tried to portray Bumpers as a pornographer for his support of federal grants to the arts.

More important, Huckabee revealed an enduring weakness as glaring as that other Arkansas governor's fondness for women. Huckabee seems to love loot and has a dismissive attitude toward ethics, campaign finance rules and propriety in general. Since that first, failed campaign, the ethical questions have multiplied.

In the 1992 contest with Bumpers, Huckabee used campaign funds to pay himself as his own media consultant. Other payments went to the family babysitter.

In his successful 1994 run for lieutenant governor, he set up a nonprofit curtain known as Action America so he could give speeches for money without having to disclose the names of his benefactors. He failed to report that campaign travel payments were for the use of his own personal plane.

After he became governor in 1996, he raked in tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, including gifts from people he later appointed to prestigious state commissions.

In the governor's office, his grasp never exceeded his reach. Furniture he'd received to doll up his office was carted out with him when he left, after he'd crushed computer hard drives so nobody could ever get a peek behind the curtain of the Huckabee administration.

So there's your conservative champion of Family Values™, in actuality a modern-day Boss Tweed. Read the whole thing. This is they guy the fundamentalist/evangelical part of the Right-wing wants in the top job.

Bastard.

Don't look to me for answers, Don't ask me--I don't know

Mike Huckabee clanked an easy lay-up the other day, when he hadn't even read or been briefed on the new NIE. Apart from the Dumond issue and every other reason Huckabee would be a disaster as President, Kevin Drum asserts that this is reason enough to disqualify Huckabee:

But maybe I'm too cynical! Maybe the press will pick up on this. For starters, here's Huckabee feebly lying about the whole thing on today's Morning Joe:

Well, I don't blame my staff. It is a situation where a report was released at 10:00 in the morning, the president hadn't seen it in four years and I'm supposed to see it four hours later.

No. The NIE was released Monday morning. He was asked about it Tuesday evening. That's two days. Two days in which the NIE was on the front page of every newspaper; it was blanketing cable TV, talk radio, and the blogosphere; and the president of the United States addressed its conclusions in a press conference. It was blockbuster news on one of the most important foreign policy issues of the campaign and Huckabee didn't even know about it.

If this were just an attempt to play gotcha with Huckabee, that would be one thing. But it wasn't. It was an ordinary question from a reporter who assumed — rightfully — that any serious candidate for president of the United States would keep up with news like this and have something to say about it. Huckabee didn't.

Indeed. I've got nothing to add. Huckabee may be a nice guy and even a decent bass player, but this proves that besides being a hyper-religious zealot and a liar, he's also less curious than GWBush about world affairs.

Me, and a gun, and a man on my back

Today's fresh Huckabee revelations ought to have some effect on his popularity. As darkblack notes below, and as we've written before here and here, Huckabee is either a full-fledged member of the "fever swamp" as Kevin Drum calls it, or was unduly influenced by the now clearly apparent "vast Right-wing conspiracy" that set out to discredit any-and-everything Clinton. As Nicole says:

Holy cow, it’s unbelievable how far the right wing’s obsession about the Clenis goes. Huckabee is desperately trying to put daylight between himself and Dumond because Dumond’s release was all about discrediting Clinton. . .

In 1988 Mike Dukakis was "Willie Hortoned" over a similar but less egregious situation; Dukakis hadn't intervened in Horton's parole, while Huckabee was directly responsible for Dumond's release. This effectively ended Dukakis' political career, but those were simpler times, when right was right and wrong was whatever Lee Atwater decided it was.

Will the Right-wing desert Huckabee over this issue? They ought to, but I remain unsure. The 24%ers, as I've said here before, will always vote for a Right-winger no matter what evidence of evil exists. The same people would have voted for GWBush back in 2004 even if he had appeared at a fund-raiser naked and screwed their children on the stage. Somehow they would spin this into "a fearless leader", or "steely-eyed rocketman".

Face it, certifiably bat-shit crazy is OK, as long as he's our crazy. And the bar is set so low today that I think it's going to take more than this for Huckabee to implode. I mean, if Giuliani is still standing after his 9/11 perfidy and serial affair transgressions were exposed, it'll take more than a few murdered women on Huckabee's resume to bring him down.