PREVIOUSLY. On the right hand, there is this:
Exhibit A: Huckabee got himself photographed in front of a window that in the photograph looked just like a cross, prompting Ron Paul to quip (ill advisedly, some would say): "It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.'" The ad agency protests it was "unaware of "this whole cross imagery.""
It's the window frame in the background," Woolson said. "Once you've got it in your head that it's a cross, it's a cross." He said he didn't know if it was deliberate or not. "People are free to view the ad anyway that they'd like to view the ad." (USA Today)
In other words, look and it shall be revealed to you! In fact, it's exactly like the image of Virgin Mary in the window of that building in Clearwater. Could it be yet another Sign that the Lord's money really is on Hucklebee?
On the left hand, there is this:
Exhibit B: The Huckabee campaign has had to "clarify" his "apparent equating of homosexuality" with necrophilia.(TPM)
David Corn at Mother Jones quoted from Huckabee's 1998 book, Kids Who Kill, as follows: "It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia."
Oooh, nice one. Except that his Director of Research, one Joe Carter, told TPM that while Huckabee feels that homosexuality is---along with the rest---"aberrant behavior," he wasn't exactly equating them..(TPM) Within the "range of aberrant behavior, both fall along a continuum, with homosexuality at one end and necrophilia at the opposite end. (TPM)
Asked to elaborate further, Carter said: "He was describing behavior. He's not casting judgment on the people themselves. His point is, the culture is becoming more accepting of aberrant behaviors."
Asked about an even harsher description of homosexuality -- back in 1992 Huckabee described it as not just "aberrant," but an "unnatural, and sinful lifestyle" -- Carter said Huckabee stood by it.
"He's not going to change his stance on that," Carter said. "He considers homosexual behavior aberrant. But there are degrees of aberrant behavior. He's not saying they're equally as bad. There's a very big distinction there."(TPM)
Andrew Sullivan:
We're not as bad as the corpse-screwers. But we're on the same spectrum. (Huckabee On Homosexuality)
Right along with the pedophiles and S&M crowd.
UPDATE. Michael D. at Balloon Juice finds the following a potentially shrewd move.
On our side, we’d be much better off saying Huckabee has every right to air a commercial like this, and not give the right what they want. If you’re going to criticize the ad, do it by criticizing Huckabee’s obvious attempt to create a controversy using the partiarch of his religion.
You don’t think there’s a War on Christmas? Watch what happens when I do this ad!
He may be “Mr. Nice Guy,” but there’s no question in my mind that this is the motive.....
Mike Huckabee during the debate: “Jesus was too smart to run for public office.”
Mike Huckabee today: “Screw it! I’m recruiting him anyway!
Oh, Reverend Governor Hucklebee. To me, it's the blinking---and the plinking background music of Christlike patience and sincerity--- that really sells it.
MEMEORANDUM HAS MORE RI' CHEER.
See especially: Think Progress, Shakespeare's Sister, The Carpetbagger Report, David Corn, Lean Left, The Swamp, Balloon Juice, Hullabaloo, AMERICAblog; TPM Election Central
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You got it right on the numbers. Hucklebee is the chosen one and all the rest is political theater. Huckbee disses Bush. Rice disses Huckabee. Hucksterbee is, therefore, his very own man, not tied, even as a Baptist minister, to the Bush conservative agenda. Ahem. Tancredo is the first to drop out and subtly highlight Hucksterbee, but he won't be the last, so the game plan goes. Worse is the media collusion, both in the set up of these unprecedented and absurd two year presidential debates whose primary, if not exclusive, function was to imprint Hucksterbee on our already quite confused, if not totally brainwashed, minds and in the daily "wonderful Hucksterbee" editorial type articles that seem to pop near daily out of nowhere, on AP, CNN, FOX of course, and most of the other arms of our Western style PRAVDA. Check out our extreme understanding of conservative politics on matrix-evolutions. Dr. and Mrs. P. V. Calabria
Posted by: Peter Calabria | December 22, 2007 at 06:16 PM