Huckabee making mistakes

By JASON TOLBERT

ARkANSAS NEwS BuREAu

The last few weeks, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has been all over the news. Of course, the sudden burst of media corresponds to the release of his latest book. But a former governor of a rural state does not get a lot of press for a book release without something more enticing. 

Thus, we are subjected to a long and painful tease, hinting that he might run for president again in 2012. In one interview with CBS and pushed out by his political action committee, he said he “very well may” run again. In a media availability at the National Press Club, he said running for president is “very much an option that he is considering” and that he is “seriously and genuinely contemplating it.” 

I could list all the quotes, but you get the idea. Of course, he is very careful not to go too far, which he admits is motivated by the fact that if he does, he has to give up his multimillion dollar contract with Fox News for his weekly cable talk show as well as his daily radio broadcast with Citadel Media. Just last week, Fox suspended contracts with both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as they are “serious concerning” running for president. 

In this respect, Huckabee is stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. But this delicate dance between hinting at a presidential run while maintaining his media empire is becoming increasingly painful to watch. 

One widely reported gaffe occurred on New York conservative talk radio station WOR. In a discussion involving President Obama’s background, Huckabee stated that Obama’s time growing up in Kenya has caused him to develop an anti-British bias. Huckabee later put out a statement saying he “misspoke” and meant Indonesia, not Kenya. However, he has not adequately explained why he mentioned the Kenyan Mau Mau Revolution’s impact on Obama.

He also managed to channel a bit of the infamous criticism that former Vice President Dan Quayle made regarding the television character Murphy Brown. In yet another conservative talk radio interview — this time with Michael Medved — Huckabee criticized actress Natalie Portman for having a child out of wedlock with her fiancŽ, saying she glamorized unwed pregnancy. Somehow his apology again made things worse. 

“My comments were about the statistical reality that most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death,” said Huckabee in his very unpresidential-sounding statement. 

However, both of these statements pale in comparison to Huckabee’s increasingly poor response to his decision while governor of Arkansas to commute the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, eventually leading to his expedited release from prison. Clemmons went on to kill four police officers in Washington state a little over a year ago. 

“It was clearly a disproportionate sentence, based on all the other cases like his,” defended Hucakbee at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “Quite honestly, I’d love to tell you this isn’t true, but that kid was black, and if he’d been white and upper middle class and had a good attorney, he wouldn’t have served a day. He’d have had probation, he’d have gone to see a counselor, and he’d probably have gone to college and probably would be on Wall Street making a couple of billion bucks a year. But instead, he’s a poor black kid from a single parent home.” 

After making these racist charges against the Arkansas criminal justice system, Huckabee blamed this same system again for not locking Clemmons back up after he help set him free. 

“Now later, that same guy made several moves that should have put him back in prison, and there were subsequent mistakes made by the prosecutors and by both Washington state and Arkansas, who could have brought him back in, and they did not,” said Huckabee, who went on to say he would make the same decision to commute Clemmons’ sentence again if faced with the same file he reviewed in 2000. 

Missteps are one thing during a media blitz to promote your book, but continuing to try to pass the blame for Clemmons on to the prosecutors of Arkansas is just sickening and continues to cement my belief that Huckabee’s main priority is to protect his brand image. I just hope this painful tease comes to an end soon.

Tolbert is an accountant and conservative political blogger. His blog — The Tolbert Report — is linked at ArkansasNews.com. His e-mail is jason@TolbertReport.com.