Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness

I'm Only Humoring The Talk Show Host, People

A graphic representation of the activation of the evangelical base.

Thanks to Mustang Bobby from Bark Bark Woof Woof for at least getting me to think about some of the crazy rhetoric many 2008 GOP Presidential candidates will have to use in order to appeal to the loonies in the primaries. I don't know what the field is going to look like at this point, but I'm fairly sure that there's only one pro-choice candidate (Guiliani); the others (Brownback, Romney, McCain, Huckabee, Santorum(?)) will have to go pretty far in getting the base to believe that they are the prophesied cultural messiah alluded to in The Book of Revelation.

However, if you were to hear one of these chuckleheads on a semi-respectable Sunday morning political talk show, you'd think that they were just good ol' fashioned church picnic-attendin', humble, Jesus-lovin', super-tolerant paragons of American inclusiveness. Putting aside the theological arguments as to whether the New Testament Jesus would encourage tax breaks for multinational oil companies in lieu of helping to provide health insurance for sick children (I think he's leaning "yes"), the amount of amateurish code used by one of these mouthbreather wranglers is really laughable. Take, for instance, the following excerpts from Arkansas Governor Huckabee's Meet the Press:

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MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask you a couple things that you said earlier in your political career... There's this: “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.” Would you, as president, consider America a Christian nation and try to lead it as—into a situation as being a more Christian nation?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think it’s dangerous to say that we are a nation that ought to be pushed into a Christian faith by its leaders. However, I make no apology for my faith. My faith explains me. It means that I believe that we’re all frail, it means that we’re all fragile, that all of us have faults, none of us are perfect, that all of us need redemption. We are a nation of faith. It doesn’t necessarily have to be mine. But we are a nation that believes that faith is an important part of describing who we are, and our generosity, and our sense of optimism and hope. That does describe me.

TRANSLATION: Majority rules, Tim. Maybe the Hindus are more tolerant of leaders who don't pander to them constantly, using passages from the Bhagavad Vita to justify government pre-screening of objectionable cinema, but there are no elephants or Festivals of Light in Little Rock.
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A few more excerpts, with appropriate de-coding, in the extended entry...

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MR. RUSSERT: But when you say...

GOV. HUCKABEE: I’m appalled, Tim, when someone says, “Tell me about your faith,” and they say, “Oh, my faith doesn’t influence my public policy.” Because when someone says that, it’s as if they’re saying, “My faith isn’t significant, it’s not authentic, it’s not so consequential that it affects me.” Well, truthfully my faith does affect me. But it doesn’t make me think I’m better than someone, it makes me know that I’m not as good as I really need to be.

TRANSLATION: Religion is a lot like performing as Borat or Ali G. If you only take it half-way and break character, you lose the audience. As for its specific influence on my policy, let's just say that it's one of those eternal mysteries so I don't have to answer that question.
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MR. RUSSERT: But when you say “take this nation back for Christ,” what does that say to Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists? What...

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I think I—I’d probably phrase it a little differently today. But I don’t want to make people think that I’m going to replace the Capitol dome with a steeple or change the legislative sessions for prayer meetings. What it does mean is that people of faith do need to exercise their sense of responsibility toward education, toward health, toward the environment. All of those issues, for me, are driven by my sense that this is a wonderful world that God’s made, we’re responsible for taking care of it. We’re responsible for being responsible managers and stewards of it. I think that’s what faith ought to do in our lives if we’re in public service.

TRANSLATION: I'd phrase it a little differently if I knew that any of those unpleasant people were actually attending one of my combination tent revival/political fundraiser. But if you ask me one more question about my excluding intolerance, I'll accuse you of being intolerant of the intolerant voices in my head.
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MR. RUSSERT: South Dakota had some proposed legislation to outlaw all abortion except saving the life of a mother, no exceptions for rape or incest. You said you’d sign that. Why?

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I always am going to err on the side of life, Tim. I believe life is precious. But I think the issue for many of us who are in the pro-life camp—and I have been since, you know, I was a teenager. This is not something that I’ve been all over the board on, it’s consistent. It’s because of my view that God is the creator and instigator of life. But I think those of us in the pro-life movement, we have to do also some growing and expanding. We have to remind people that life, that we believe it begins at conception. It doesn’t end at birth. And if we’re really pro-life we have to be concerned about more than just the gestation period. As a pro-life person, as a governor, look at my record. Yes, did we pass pro-life legislation? We did. But we also did things that improved the environmental quality and the conservation issues that would affect a child’s air and water. We also made sure that he had a better education, that access to affordable health care would be better. So I think that real pro-life people need to be concerned about affordable housing, we need to be concerned about safe neighborhoods, access to a college education. That, for me, is what pro-life has to mean.

TRANSLATION: Well, there's no way I can nuance my way out of the first part, so I'll cop to it. Of course, in the entirely foreseeable instance that my corporate campaign contributors demand that I drop advocacy of any of my post-birth pro-life initiatives, I will do so immediately and without hesitation.
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MR. RUSSERT: But if you outlawed abortion, what would happen to the doctor who performed an abortion? What, what would happen to the woman who had an abortion?

GOV. HUCKABEE: Well, I think the question is, would I sign the bill in South Dakota? Do I think it’s the best only bill that ever could be signed? The question still comes back to this is a debate that’s been so divisive, and what we really need to be doing is having the discussion center around how can we create a culture where people value and celebrate life. The fundamental difference between the United States and our enemies in terror is that, regardless of whether one is considered pro-life or pro-choice, the one thing that—that is unique to America, or certainly characteristic of America, is that we celebrate life. We believe in it; we cherish it. We may have different definitions of it, what it means and how extensive we want to protect it. But the enemy on the other hand celebrates death. That’s where we need to bring this debate, is to remind ourselves that we still are a nation that elevates the concept that life is precious and important. And I hope that we can center on those topics rather than on the, the fine points that sometimes separate and divide.

TRANSLATION: I would imprison the doctors, because they're not a big enough lobby. However, I would leave the mothers alone, because they're a larger voting bloc and I don't really believe my own rhetoric.
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MR. RUSSERT: But, as president, you would seek to ban abortion.

GOV. HUCKABEE: I would seek always to promote the view that life is precious and should be protected. Would I be able to singularly do that? Of course not. But I think it has to be won on, on a battlefield of one heart at a time rather than pieces of legislation at a time.

TRANSLATION: Yes.
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MR. RUSSERT: You said this to the Des Moines Register: “Let’s face it. In our lifetimes, we’ve seen our country go from ‘Leave it to Beaver’ to ‘Beavis and Butt-head,’ from Barney Fife to Barney Frank.” Why, why include Barney Frank, a gay congressman, in that reference?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think it was a matter of a rhetorical device to talk about the different cultural shift that we have, and it wasn’t any particular attempt to be derisive of him. But, but there has been a huge cultural shift in this country, Tim. And I think that’s why many Americans are seeking leadership that has a positive and optimistic spirit, that wants to take this nation—what I call vertical politics rather than horizontal.

TRANSLATION: Because, when it really comes down to it, nobody likes fags kissing, Tim... or, for that matter, child molesters like Floyd the Barber. Props to Dick Armey for that "Barney Fag" so-called slip of the tongue. And I'm sorry about that double entendre in my actual answer.
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MR. RUSSERT: But some would suggest by including Barny Frank in that reference you are tearing a gay man down. You’re against gay marriage, you’re against gay civil unions. Is—do you have a problem with gay people?

GOV. HUCKABEE: No. I have a problem with changing institutions that have served us. And I, I think I would rather characterize not what I’m against, but what I’m for. Before we change the definition of marriage to mean something different, I think our real focus ought to be on trying to strengthen heterosexual marriages because half of them are ending in divorce. That’s a real problem in this country. There are a lot of kids who are growing up in a very, very confused and conflicted world because—not because we have same-sex marriage, but because we’re seeing a real failure in the tradition heterosexual marriage. That’s where our focus needs to be. Because if we want to end poverty, get a kid through high school, let him grow up in a stable, two-parent home and make sure that that child doesn’t have a child before he’s 21 and has a full-time job. That’s a 93 percent chance that child will never grow up in a single day of poverty if those are the criteria.

TRANSLATION: Yes I do, Tim, and I think you do to. Nobody likes being fondled by a guy against their will... am I right?
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MR. RUSSERT: Should gay couples be allowed to adopt children?

GOV. HUCKABEE: That’s a question that, that I think, again, goes back to the heart of what’s best for the child. Unfortunately, so much of this argument has been framed about what, what the same-sex couple wants. But the real question needs to be child-focused, not couple-focused. And, Tim, that’s true for whether the couple is same-sex or whether they’re heterosexual. In our state, as in most, the criteria for adoption is always what’s in the best interest of the child. That ought to be what’s front and center.

TRANSLATION: God knows I'd try to if I had the power, Tim. But there's just enough people who seem to care more about the welfare children than some obscure Old Testament passage about buggery to get me to take action.
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MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that you’re born gay or you choose to be gay?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I don’t honestly know. I really don’t. I think there are—there are people who would argue vociferously on both sides of that. But I think that the point is, people are, are who they want to be, and we should respect them for that. But when they want to change the institutions that’ve governed our society for all the years of recorded human history, then that’s a serious change of, of culture that we, we don’t just make readily or, or hurriedly. It has to be done with some, some deep thought.

TRANSLATION: Why would God genetically do that to us, Tim? It doesn't make any sense!

Posted by Norbizness at January 29, 2007 08:34 AM