He made an appearance on the leftist, commie, socialist radio show All Things Considered today on NPR. Republicans won’t have that! You’ll see those numbers slide tomorrow.
Q. Do you feel you’re getting an unfair shake here about being a Baptist minister, and that people are going after your beliefs more than is appropriate in a presidential campaign?
A. For people to dig back 20 years and say “Oh, you know what, you said something in a church somewhere” — I’m not running to be the pastor of America, I’m running to be the president.
Does Mike Huckabee even listen to himself?:
“faith doesn’t just influence me, it really defines me.”
“I put my head on the pillow and I just want to make sure that the Father above is pleased”
“In essence, I can say that I have one client I have to please”
And it’s not the American people. Sounds like a Pastor in Chief to me. All the same, let him win the primary. Please! It will be fun to watch Republicans eat each other alive.
If you haven’t heard, he’s just hired Ed Rollins to be his new campaign chair.
Update: Rollins just said on CNN that 26 of the signers of the Constitution were ministers. Is this true? If so, it’s something I didn’t know.
calipygian
While doing some hard hitting campaign reporting for the AP, Fred Thompson was asked what his favorite possession was. He answered, “My trophy wife.” And you’re still talking about Huckabee?
I get the feeling that the Baby Son of the Father above is crying.
horatius
It looks like Rollins just pulled this steaming pile of shit right outta his ass. Like Republicans are wont to do. Remember “Truthiness”?
Michael D.
horatius: Now that I’ve been thinking of it, I think I remember hearing that there were several ministers among the signers. But I also think I remember hearing that debunked. My mind is in “senior” mode.
Doubting Thomas
Well, I just checked the national archives and they have bios of all 40 signers. I think he overstates the number, but I didn’t read all the bios. But, so what if they were? They enshrined a constitution that clearly defined a solid division between church and state.
Michael D.
Doubting Thomas: Great point.
calipygian
Rollins knows a bit about ministers. He paid off enough of them during the New Jersey Gubernatorial race in 1994 to suppress the black vote and then bragged about it like he was proud.
I wonder if his great-great-great-great-great-Grandpappy paid off a few of those minister-signers to get that three fifths clause into the Constitution.
Longshot
“Update: Rollins just said on CNN that 26 of the signers of the Constitution were ministers. Is this true? If so, it’s something I didn’t know.”
Most certainly NOT, and this is not the first time I have heard that falsehood uttered.
http://www.usconstitution.net/constframedata.html
ONE minister. Abraham Baldwin. Minister/Lawyer.
Most of the signers were, unsurprisingly, lawyers. Most of the rest were either merchants or politicians.
But ONE minister. ONE. No matter how many religious apologists want very much to believe it’s “26”.
Mark S.
Is this true?
No.
Michael A
Fewer than 26
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13329.html
dslak
It’s a longstanding Christian Nation myth that half the Founders attended seminary (link)
Rollins seems to find that falsehood less fitting, and, since no one is likely to call him on it, has decided that bullshit beats the truth any day.
Michael D.
I would have to wonder why Lou Dobbs would have not followed up on that. Not that Lou Dobbs gets his shit right, but that would seem like something obvious to say “Wait wait wait, hold everything!”
Longshot
Mark S. points out that the Huckabee fans like to throw this kind of chaff not only at the Constitution, but also at the Declaration of Independence.
There, as with the Constitution, only ONE minister was a signatory (as opposed to the “most” b.s. that Huckabee spouts) – in that case one John Witherspoon.
If you count *former* clergymen and take the most generous estimate, then FOUR of the 56 signers of the Declaration could count as “clergy” (as opposed to FORMER clergy) – still nowhere near what anyone would consider “most”.
Michael D.
Thanks for the links. I really had no idea! :-)
Chris
He doesn’t have to. God will tap him on the shoulder if something needs watching or adjusting.
That would be one of the upsides of a Huckabee campaign. We’d spend the entire time mocking his ignorance while he blissfully grins like he’s on track for perfection.
It’s a standing principle of modern Baptists that since God is inerrant, the Bible is inerrant, but the Bible is self-contradictory, therefore it’s permissible and likely required by God that one be contradictory and hypocritical. Us modern educated folk require empirical proof to avoid cognitive dissonance. They do not.
They just need the Bible.
Zifnab
Evil Mexicans or STFU!
Don K
Now it’s 26 signers of the constitution, eh? Used to be a majority of the signers of the declaration. They keep repeating this bullshit (and modifying it as they see fit) to keep the idea alive that Murrika is a Christian Nation.
I suppose that stuff in the constitution about no religious tests and the Second Amendment and all is really a test from God. He forced the members of the constitutional convention (and the members of the first congress) to put it in there to see if his children would be fooled by such nonsense.
Chris
lawllawlroffle
“This Lou Dobbs. Later, I will have candidate Bill Richardson, and he will admit he’s an Evil Mexican. But first, to fill you in on some news.
First up, Vincente Fox is on a good-will tour through Central America, arguing for better healthcare, and that he’s an Evil Mexican.
Also on tour is Alberto Gonzales is on speaking rounds through the U.S., garnering high fees for revealing just how greasy his dirty Mexican hair is.
Now, joining me is Bill Richardson, former Governor of New Mexico.”
“Hi Lou.”
“STFU and SAY IT!”
“Wha…?”
“I SAID STFU!! SAY IT YOU DIRTY TACO-EATER!”
“Say wh-”
“EVIL MEXICAN OR STFU!!”
“I came by today to-”
“EVIL MEXICAN OR STFU!!!”
“Um, Lou-”
“THAT’S IT!! CUT THE EVIL MEXICAN’S MIC! SOMEONE GET ME THE I.N.S.!!!”
hee
jake
Can we make it a rule that if a candidate or his employees shows gross and outrageous ignorance of American history, that candidate gets a kick in the junk and kicked out of the running?
There’s something I’d like to see instead of a debate. Stand everyone up in front of the cameras and ask them questions from a Civics class final. You’d get a better class of candidate because it would frighten off the lazy asses.
Xenos
The signatures on the Constitution are not legally relevant. The Constitution did not become valid until ratified – a process that involved approximately 100,000 (white, propertied, male) voters approving it. They are the enactors of the Constitution, not the signors, who signed as verification of their support and as proof they had taken part in the negotiations involved in writing it. These folks, who did not write the Constitution, but who made the Constituion the law of the land, are the founding fathers.
I used to be a representative Town Meeting member for a town that was very proud of having voted against ratifying the Constitution. They did not want any stinking constitution without a bill of rights integrated in it – they did not trust a bunch of fancy-pants in Philadelphia to follow through on any promises to submit 10 amendmants at som time in the future. If I were in their shoes, I probably would have voted with them.
The town is quite proud of that vote, which should remind us that there were principled positions against the Constitution as submitted for ratification (3/5 compromise, anyone?), said positions which proceeded to drive the political development of the USA. The grandchildren of those anticonstitutionalists left their families behind and sacrificed their lives to straighten out the bastards who forced that 3/5 compromise into the constitution. So one can accurately state that even those (white, propertied, male) persons who voted against ratifying the constitution should be considered founding fathers as well.
Where does that leave the Huckleberrys of modern America, with their phony histories and simple-minded superstition and shallow propriety? They are latter-day hucksters and charlatans, who lie about what the Bible says, who lie about what the Constitution says, who lie about who the founding fathers were. If their theology is correct, they will end up in Hell for the lies that they tell — in the mean-time they belong in prison. Or treated as the moral circus freaks they are.
Chris
You would be ashamed to find out how stupid those questions would happen to be :/
jake
Most of the signers of the Constitution wore stockings and wigs.
Guiliani 2008!
Xenos
I would like to apologize to all circus freaks for having compared them to Mike Huckabee and Ed Rollins. I got carried away and lost my temper. I will try not to do that again.
Perry Como
I’m ordained and I can sign my name in the snow. Does that count?
Siamese Gimp
If it happens again you’ll wake up with the bearded lady in your bed.
jcricket
Pretty much any time a fundie quotes you something about history that says America or the olden days were just like they (the fundies) want it to be, you can surmise it’s bunk.
Brian C.B.
Re: 3/5s compromise.
Don’t be an idiot.
The point of the compromise was an accommodation between property and humanity. Sure, treating a human being as 3/5s of a person seems awful, until you realize who would be casting 5/5s of that person’s vote: his owner. The principled stand would have been to treat the enslaved as prisoners and count their “manhood” as nothing. Only free men count, because only free men can register will.
Xenos
It was not the majority decision to prefer the Continental Congress to a federal system that was designed to protect the rights and powers of slaveholders. It might have been an unreasonable, even radical position. But it was certainly principled.
incontrolados
On local PBS in Houston I just watched an evangelical co-opt Jimmy Carter, the enviromental movement, and with a straight face say that when big corps go down, evangelicals are the ones who come in to clean up. It made his pitch about Hollywood seem tame.
I’ll go back and read the comments now.
Pb
Sounds like Huckabee should have gone for Henry Rollins…
incontrolados
You are kidding, right?
Oh, wait that was something that I know that is happening on a level that I know.
Powdered wigs and Krispy Kreme Donuts
Henry Rollins at least has his shit straight….
incontrolados
Please give some traffic to my favorite wingnut. She is still holding on to John McCain. She ventured in to Sandly No territory a while back and has been somewhat infested, but she could use more. You’ll notice that she follows things that are discussed here, but has a different take.
Jen, you just now tried something with RedState? Been there done that. Sparkly used to have a blog at my local paper — she gave it up. Now she’s even changed her original blog. Wonder why she moderates comments so closely? Me. But I still get in. It’s fun to work around.
El Cid
Huckabee’s making the news for his Foreign Policy magazine essay, in which (pre-NIE as it was written) he suggests the US could deal with a contained Iran, and described Bush Jr. as having a “arrogant bunker mentality”, and Huckabee would try not to oppose the world but only unite the world against the terrorists.
Kinda treasony dissenty by Republican standards, no?
El Cid
Oops. Of course, that was actually the CFR’s “Foreign Affairs” periodical, not the Carnegie Endowment’s “Foreign Policy”, though it was about foreign policy.
scarshapedstar
This is bullshit. They had “degrees in divinity” because that’s what you got in colleges back then. I’m pretty sure Kevin Drum has a post on this.
Sasha
The point of the compromise was an accommodation between property and humanity. Sure, treating a human being as 3/5s of a person seems awful, until you realize who would be casting 5/5s of that person’s vote: his owner. The principled stand would have been to treat the enslaved as prisoners and count their “manhood” as nothing. Only free men count, because only free men can register will.
More like an accomodation between property and power. (The Northern states would have preferred that slaves be counted and 0/5ths of a person, preventing Southern states from having a disproportionate amount of Representatives in the House.)
Bob In Pacifica
I am a minister. In the Universal Life Church. Didn’t keep me out of the army in 1971. So bite my reverential ass.
horatius
Wrong. That makes it Half, not one. He was a Lawyer/Minister. So, that’s Half, not one.
Kynn
So he was multiclassed.
croatoan
“the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.” — John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli, 1797
Artice VI: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”
cleek
Mitt Romney: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom”
who you gonna trust, some guy who’s been dead for 250 years or someone who’s running for president right now?
Psycheout
There’s a rumor going around that Newt Gingrich is going to endorse Huckabee. That ought to anger some people.
Cain
Harry Reid is a tool.
That is all.
cain
Badtux
Re: Foreign Affairs article: Ole’ Huck is batshit insane, of course. But unlike Dear Leader, he isn’t stupid.
Pb, Henry Rollins would beat Huck to a pulp if he was placed in the same room as Huck. Henry don’t play. Somehow I don’t think Henry is getting *anywhere* near Huck (or any other of the venal politicians who front the real powers that rule us).
Randolph Fritz
We can only hope Huckabee does lose, if he really does become the Republican nominee. But, is anyone sure he will?
Gary Denton
Only one of the 56 was an active clergyman. If you count former ministers – four.
As has been said before, these ministers make sh*t up all of the time. If they say something about history it is certain to be wrong.
WE ALL FALL DOWN
Michael D:
This world and the world the signers of the Constitution lived in are NOT one and the same. They never rode in an automobile, or paid into social security or ate fast food. They cooked over open hearths and mended a lot of horseshoes. The religious expectations of those times were different than they are today too. Does it matter how many of the signers of the Constitution were ministers. Does being a minister automatically assume that one is godly? What IS a godly man anyway? Are you sure those who say they are godly really are? It is my belief that just about anyone who spent a day in church would admit to being godly if pressed to the point. We all walk around thinking we’re pretty good people too, but, somewhere out there the bad exists, only it’s not “me”.
My personal feelings are that the godliest of us all are those who don’t have expectations of who is godly and who isn’t. I don’t want a bunch of religious zealots telling me I have to believe in a religion I will never believe in, that’s not America. Wake up dude!
WE ALL FALL DOWN
Dear God,
Please help this country to nominate Huckabee as the GOP candidate, and then rip the rug out from under his feet in the general election! ;)
WE ALL FALL DOWN
He was a Levite?
WE ALL FALL DOWN
Because no one mentioned border control?
TrishB
Has anyone else noticed that Mr. Wolcott has linked to Mr. Cole?
Joe Max
And one educator, Hugh Williamson.
Same with the signers of the Declaration of Independence (the other version I’ve heard of this falsehood): ONE Physician/Minister, Lyman Hall of Georgia. (And in both cases, their vocation is something other than a minister.)
Same breakdown, mostly lawyers, with farmers and merchants.
Wasn’t there was something about bearing false witness in those commandment thingees…?
Media Glutton
Just wanted to throw my two cents in that, Michael D., you do seem at least to want to have a conversation on these blog posts so I feel bad that I insulted you during the whole “LOL” -Fair Tax debacle. Great to see you responding to people’s posts here with some candor! I apologize for my earlier snarkiness
Michael D.
Can you say, “Presidentless America?”
Michael D.
Media Glutton: No need. I love the snark. Keeps me on my toes. Just so you know, I am totally not used to blogging for such a large audience. One thing I have to get used to is snark! I’m used to blogging for a thousand people a day who agree with everything I say! So people calling me out on stupid shit is ok. It really is! Gotta get used to it!
Dug Jay
お客様が受け取ったカードにはパスコードが設定されています。パスコードと は、カードを第三者にみられないようにするための暗証番号です。パスコード はYahoo! JAPAN IDのパスワードとは異なります。カードを見る場合は、下記 のパスコードを入力してください。
dslak
गू
grumpy realist
Uh, Dug Jay–why have you decided to post a piece of Japanese talking about security cards and passcodes? This makes no sense.
(For those interested, it says: “The card that the guest/customer has received has a passcode on it. The passcode is coded so that it cannot be seen by a third party. The passcode is different from the Yahoo! JAPAN ID. In order to see the card, please enter the following passcode.” )
Dug Jay
Uh, grumpy realist—the Japanese gibberish appeared to fit right in with the other nonsense found in this post/thread.
Andrew
This:
was POTD until this came along:
Winner!
Outatime
I’m really happy to see Dem trollers blogging away for once. What’s the old saying” “What’s good for the Goose …”
Outatime
P.S.. So does that make me a “lying Blackfoot or a truthful Whitefoot?” – quote from the movie, Charades !
Dreggas
Not to be late to the party but several of the signers, most notably Ben Franklin, were members of various “Hellfire Clubs” so if they were ordained ministers it was only to mock the clergy.
Dreggas
correction franklin attended as a non-member.
Andrew
Could you bang the nuns as a non-member?
Dreggas
My understanding is yes LOL.
Bob In Pacifica
Since the first guy held the keys to the granary, the people at the top of the food chain, i.e., the state, have been justifying their position and their actions to the hoi polloi by invoking the magic of the heavens.
“We’re making a pyramid over there, you need to drag these blocks of stone across the desert to build a temple for King Tut.” Either they proclaim themselves gods, they claim to sit on the throne by the grace of God, or God is on their side in a war, or Dubya talks with God. So Huckabee is positive he knows the real God (the one who keeps tricking the non-believers into believing evolution), not the phony gods like the Mormons worship or the incomplete god of the Jews or the dangerous Muslim god or any of the other false gods. It’s all the same scam. Essentially, it’s putting holy lipstick on a human pig. The process has gone on since the beginning of civilization.
Gunga Dean
You stole my header ;)
http://pabulumadnauseam.blogspot.com/2007/12/huckabee-schmuckabee.html
justme
Dreggas
My guess is that Benji certainly did, then, that horndog.
Badtux
I gave up on Mr. I’ll-never-sell-out Rollins ten years ago, when he started doing voiceovers for Saturn commercials. But, yeah, he would probably draw some blood if he were locked in a room with any of the mendacious assclowns gunning for the GOP nom.
STEVEinSC
As I understand it, Benjamin Franklin banged a lot more than nuns, maybe everything in sight.
J sub D
Because he’s Lou Fucking Dobbs for chrissake. This is not an A-list journalist we’re discussing here. CNN should be ashamed for hiring this “journalist”.
Zifnab
I always heard he was a bit of a chubby chaser. And during his tenor as Ambassador to France… yeah, he got around.
To be fair, a number of the founders were verbally opposed to slavery, particularly those in the north where slaves were typically better educated and more rarely used and guilds – the precursor to modern unions – didn’t like them because they were seen as a threat to job security. Ministers and preachers were some of the most vocal.
Patrick Henry (of “Give me Liberty or Give me Death!” fame) – although not a participant in the Constitutional Convention because of his support for the Articles of the Confederacy – is quoted as saying:
Many would have happily seen slaves counted as 5/5ths of a person right after they were emancipated.
Still, the grotesqueness of “3/5th” was not the blatant power whoring of the slave-owning south nor was it the disrespect given to slaves by considering them 3/5ths of a person, but the combination of the two. This idea that a state could increase its representation in Congress by importing human beings who would never share in the liberty that Congress was supposed to safe-guard and enforce is the most vile part of our hallowed document. It was laughably cruel in that it gave a slave owner MORE political clout by flensing it from the husks of eternally imprisoned fellows. A slave owner counted as 1 person + 3/5th of a person for every slave he owned. Thus, by owning slaves, he became more influential than his peers to the north. What a sick joke.
Dreggas
Oh and there is hope, my bellwhether (aka Dad) hates huckabee, hates giuliani even more and could only vote for Romney because he’s the least offensive on the repub side (he’s a repub). That being said he really likes Obama but is concerned about the age thing, I think I can work him to my side for once.
mds
I’d like to take heart from this, but my bellwether (aka Dad) loves Huckabee and is (exact quote) “really scared of Osama.” By which he means Barack Obama. I just hope that if the GOP Money Powers do destroy Huck’s candidacy, that he’ll stay at home rather than vote for the Mormon cultist or the pro-babykilling New York candidate.