It's less so with Mike. The main result of the weight loss he seems to feel has cosmic significance is that he's now limber enough to put one or more feet in his mouth without hardly trying. Even though his stunning conflation of Benazir Bhutto's assassination and Mexican immigration left many of his supporters open-mouthed at his illogic and his pathetic attempt to put every bit of news into that Procrustean bed of illegal immigration, he keeps doing it. If that asteroid hits Mars in late January, I'm sure we'll hear about the need to build an even higher wall along the wild and scenic Rio Grande.
The Huckster's latest attempt to appeal to the unlettered aired yesterday on Meet the Press. Homosexuality, said Mike, is a choice.
"We may have certain tendencies, but [we choose] how we behave and how we carry out our behavior,"he said to Russert. "Very interesting," Arte Johnson used to say, "but stupid." Stupid indeed, unless this is Huckabee's attempt to admit the secret homosexual tendencies so common amongst his peers. If one has to choose which gender to be interested in, one might rightly be able to say it's a choice, but most of us never had to think much about it, our natures having been formed in utero at the latest. Most people have heard the "it's a choice" argument disemboweled long enough ago to be embarrassed to hear their candidate endorse it.
I don't know how many more of his supporters will head for the gang plank after this latest revelation of idiocy, but although the press continues to wave flags for him and invent opportunities to use the name Reagan in conjunction with his, he can't have many left. Telling us that he believes we are all sinners, he doesn't seem to realize that by calling homosexuality a sin, his argument cancels itself out, but all kidding aside, Mike Huckabee is an idiot who attempts to make other idiots feel good about their idiocy so they'll vote for him.
3 comments:
Thanks for citing the long forgotten but hilarious quote from Henry Gibson -- I hadn't thought of it in decades and it made me laugh.
I saw Huckabee interviewed yesterday and had a different reaction than you. I thought he was very persuasive to the bigots who might have some self-doubt about their visceral hatred of homosexuals because they know a little too much to not have some doubts about their odious bigotry. Huckabee seemed to say "we are all sinners, even married couples, so there is nothing wrong with hating gays... as long as we acknowledge that we're not 'perfect' either."
He seemed to give that line of thought the ok, and he didn't sound like a bigot when he said it, at least not to me.
I wish I could agree with you, as I often do, that his performance turned off some people, but I don't think it did. He used the smoke and mirrors trick and I think people who want to think it's ok to hate gays, but have a few doubts somewhere in the recesses of their not fully formed lobes, appreciated his comments, sadly.
He has that gift of being able to spew vile and promote hatred while clutching the mantle of Christian principles (he used the words "God's perfection, I think), and the predisposed in Iowa and elsewhere will feel better about themselves as a result.
No doubt he will always have supporters and there will always be self righteous idiots, self hating hypocrites and other kinds of Republicans, but I think many more normal people are fleeing this obviously stupid candidate. The polls seem to back that up.
But the idea that all sin is sin and we are all sinners whether we commit crimes or not has long troubled me and I've heard many sermons saying exactly that. It makes me question the possibility of anything like Christian ethics since every attempt to be good is futile - why even bother if all you have to do is mumble the words and do the ceremony - you might as well eat, drink and be merry, because you're going to heaven anyway while Jonas Salk rots in hell.
I saw that Huckabee sort of imploded today. In fact, some writer at "Beliefnet" who has been a staunch supporter cried foul over that stunt today, so again - maybe you are right, maybe some of the seeming "true believers" are now coming around. I hope so.
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