Mike Huckabee Offends Entire Political Spectrum in a Single Speech

Mike Huckabee started bugging Gretchen for a telephone consultation with me starting Thursday afternoon, but it wasn’t until after six o’clock on Friday night that my schedule actually allowed for it.  While every American who votes has heard of Mike Huckabee, international readers of this Web log may be unfamiliar with him, so for their benefit I will explain that he is conservative Republican politician who did quite well in his party primaries during the 2008 presidential election cycle here in the United States, but eventually lost the Republican presidential nomination race to John McCain and the vice-presidential selection process to Sarah Palin.  He is from Arkansas, a state in the southern US, where he once served as its governor from 1996 to 2007.  Arkansas is known for its culture, based on the Southern Baptist sect of Christianity; its cuisine, based on deep fried squirrels; its music, based on 190-proof moonshine whiskey; and its traditions, based on Jim Crow racism, back-slapping, palm-greasing good-old-boy corruption, incest no more severe than marrying one’s first cousin, and, of course, firearms.  Coincidentally, Huckabee was born in the town of Hope, which is the same place that former US president Bill Clinton was born and raised.  It is uncertain, however, whether the two of them ever attended a Southern Baptist service, shot, skinned, gutted and deep fried squirrels, drank high-octane moonshine and sang rockabilly songs, got down to any Arkansas-style shady business deals or engaged in any of Arkansas’ other quaint folkway traditions together.  Probably not, as Clinton is a about nine years older than Huckabee, however, as they say, you can take the Arkansan out of Arkansas, but you can’t take the Arkansas out of the Arkansan.  Be that as it may, though, if you are an international reader of this Web log, and you ever visit Arkansas, and your complexion is anything darker than that of Bill Clinton or Mike Huckabee, do not let the sun set on you outside of any major metropolitan center, which is to say, Little Rock or West Memphis, lest you learn from experience considerably more about Arkansas than you would ever wish to know.


Tom: Hello?  Governor Huckabee?
Huckabee: Is this Tom Collins?
Tom: It is indeed, sir.  How are you this evening?
Huckabee: Okay, I guess, not terrible nor nothing like that, but obviously I’m not too good, or I wouldn’t be calling you up for advice, now would I?
Tom: I suppose not, Governor.
Huckabee: And I hear you give advice for free the first time?
Tom: That’s correct.
Huckabee: That’s good, because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t afford your advice if it wasn’t free.
Tom: Really?  You’re the author of a New York Times best-selling book, and the host of your own eponymous talk show on the Fox network, but you still find my rates beyond your means?
Huckabee: Well, writing doesn’t pay as well as a lot of folks expect it would, you know, and being a talk show host ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, either.
Tom: My sympathies.  May I ask how you obtained my telephone number?
Huckabee: Pat McCrory gave it to me.
Tom: Oh, I see.  I must remember to thank him.
Huckabee: He says, the word is you’re the smartest person in Washington.
Tom: Which is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.
Huckabee: Baltimore?  Isn’t that where Nancy Pelosi is from?
Tom: I’m afraid so.
Huckabee: You know, it’s a shame about Maryland, them being such a blue state – they’re south of the Mason-Dixon line, after all.
Tom: Yes, but the history of Maryland is fraught with contradictions, unfortunately.  How can I help you today, Governor?
Huckabee: Well, now, yesterday I was giving a speech to the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee, and I think it went pretty darn well, if I do say so myself.  But afterwards
Tom: Yes, I know – there was considerable comment on Twitter, on Facebook, in the blogosphere, and even in – you’ll excuse the expression – the establishment media, concerning what you said.
Huckabee: All of it based on taking my remarks out of context!
Tom: Of course, Governor.  Being quoted out of context is the lamentable fate of every scrupulously honest, well-meaning, highly informed, impressively erudite, fervently patriotic and brilliantly intelligent politician.
Huckabee: Me included, right?
Tom: The situation is ironic, Governor, because you’re generally considered to be a very effective communicator – warm, genial, folksy…
Huckabee: And all that other stuff you said, too, right?
Tom: A speaker whom many people have likened to no less than Ronald Wilson Reagan…
Huckabee: Who was scrupulously honest, well-meaning, highly informed, impressively erudite, fervently patriotic and brilliantly… oh.  Um… never mind.  Yeah, a lot of people say I’m as good as him.
Tom: And he was regularly quoted out of context by his opponents, wasn’t he?
Huckabee: But not like this!  I meant the exact opposite of what they say I did!
Tom: Let me see now, I believe what you said in that speech was, quote, “If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, so be it.”
Huckabee: Ah… um… er… uh… Yes, that’s correct.
Tom: Red meat to a lion is as a red flag to a bull, sir.
Huckabee: Okay, okay, yeah, sure, if you take that out of context, which is my whole point, it sounds like I’m the one who…
Tom: You said “libido,” sir.
Huckabee: Um… okay, yeah, I did.
Tom: You  said “reproductive system,” sir.
Huckabee: Well, yeah… sure I did.  That’s what I was talking about, how insulting the Democrats are because they assume women can’t control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government!  I mean, really, how condescending and patronizing is that?
Tom: And then you said, “Let’s stop calling each other somehow less Republican than someone else.”
Huckabee: Right – I was talking about how the Tea Party folks are always calling other Republicans “RINO” – “Republican In Name Only” – and acting holier-than-thou about how pure and conservative the Tea Party is.
Tom: Good point, Governor, no doubt about that, but then you went on to talk about Auschwitz.
Huckabee: Sure, well, Auschwitz is where I’m going next week.
Tom: And you weren’t referring to the town of Auschwitz, formerly located in the Austrian province of Galicia…
Huckabee: Where?
Tom:…which is today known as Oswiecim, were you?
Huckabee: No, no, of course not.  Next week I’m going to visit… you know… Auschwitz.
Tom: The infamous Nazi concentration camp.
Huckabee: Yeah, sure, that one.
Tom: Located in the vicinity of Oswiecim, in Poland.
Huckabee: Poland?  I’m going to Poland?  Dagnabbit, I wish my people would tell me these things!  Should I pack anything special?
Tom: Such as what?
Huckabee: Oh, I donno – air freshener, Rid, fumigants, disinfectants, stuff like that?
Tom: I can’t think of anything particular to recommend.
Huckabee: Is there anything I could catch?  Any shots I ought to get?
Tom: Just the usual traveller’s shots, nothing special besides typhus, hepatitis A and B, tick-borne encephalitis and rabies.
Huckabee: Rabies?
Tom: Only if you expect to be around wolves, badgers, weasels, foxes, bats, cats or dogs, of course.
Huckabee: Uh… of course… right.
Tom: So you were referring to the Nazi concentration camp known as Auschwitz in your speech?
Huckabee: Yeah, I’m going to go visit there so I can get in touch with… you know… all the massively important and significant stuff that happened there and all.
Tom: Certainly.  And then you went on to point out that all the massively important and significant stuff that happened at Auschwitz concentration camp was made possible because the Nazi state predicated its policies on a philosophy that emphasized the “devaluation of people,” which is to say, the devaluation of certain people who weren’t Nazis.
Huckabee: Yeah, I did.  Because that’s what the Nazis thought, didn’t they?
Tom: And then you said, quote, “You realize that the only way you can end up there is when you start with the idea that people just aren’t as valuable as you are,” didn’t you?
Huckabee: Um… yeah.
Tom: And, speaking of context, by the way, in the context of your speech, that remark seems to indicate you consider members of the Tea Party to be like Nazis when they “devalue” other conservative Republicans by calling them “RINOS” does it not?
Huckabee: No, no, no!   It’s a slippery slope, that’s the point, not that the Tea Party folks are Nazis.
Tom: But calling you a RINO puts them on the road to become Nazis?
Huckabee: No, no, of course not!
Tom: You mean, the Tea Party calling establishment Republicans RINOS doesn’t “devalue” them?  And doing so doesn’t put members of the Tea Party movement on a slippery slope to ending up as something like the Nazis?
Huckabee: Consarn it!  Now if you go and put it that way, it looks like I meant it to mean what you just said, but I didn’t!  What I meant was, you can’t go around calling your fellow Republicans RINOS because… because…
Tom: Because?
Huckabee: Because… it’s an insult to the rhinoceros, which is no way to treat an animal, particularly one that’s almost extinct!
Tom: Oh, so that’s it!  Now I understand your remarks about the Tea Party perfectly, Governor.
Huckabee: Well, that’s good.
Tom: And naturally, I also understand what you were getting at when you made those remarks about women.
Huckabee: Excellent!
Tom: But you will notice, Governor, how much explaining was necessary.
Huckabee: Yeah, well, there is that.
Tom: And if you were take the time to sit down and explain yourself, as you have just done for me, one at a time, to every person whose vote you will need in order to be elected president of the United States in 2016, voters who presently would not do so because they either think you are insensitive to women and/or consider members of the Tea Party to be Nazis, it would take you about seven thousand five hundred years.
Huckabee: Seventy-five hundred years?
Tom: If you had to repeat the explanation you just convinced me with, one-on-one, to everybody else you now need to also convince likewise, one after the other; then yes, it would take longer for you to do that than since the beginning of recorded history.  Do you understand the magnitude of the problem now?
Huckabee: Uh… um…. yeah, I guess I do… now, that is.  Gee whiz, Tom, what can I do about this?
Tom: My recommendation would be ESAT.
Huckabee: ESAT?  What’s that, some kind of aptitude test people have to pass so they can get into college or med school or something?
Tom: No, it stands for Electronic Shock Aversion Therapy.
Huckabee: Electronic?  Shock?  Aversion Therapy?  What are you talking about?
Tom: I can refer you to a number of qualified practitioners, all of whom operate outside the United States, naturally.  There are several in Europe.  You even could make your initial visit on your return trip from Poland.
Huckabee: I donno – how does it work?
Tom: Well, the particulars would be up to the physician administering the therapy, but as an example, he – or she – might have you read that speech you gave to the RNC on Thursday, and every time you say “libido,” “reproductive system,” “birth control,” “Uncle Sugar,” “Germany,” “World War II,” “Auschwitz,” “devaluation of people” or “war on women,” you would received a mild electrical shock.
Huckabee: You mean, like they give crazy people in those old movies?
Tom: No, no, not anything at all like that.  You wouldn’t get a sedative or muscle relaxants, and you’d be sitting in a chair, not strapped to a hospital gurney.  And the shock would be ten thousand times less, if not even smaller, like one you’d get from a brass door knob after walking across a nylon rug in wool socks on a dry, cold winter day.
Huckabee: So what would that do for me?
Tom: It would condition you to avoid saying those words and phrases.
Huckabee: But what if I needed to say them?  What if I need to say, I donno, maybe, “Can you give me directions to Germany from Auschwitz, because we have to find an emergency room where they speak something besides Polish; help me, please, my wife’s reproductive system is at stake,” or something like that?
Tom: Oh, don’t worry, you’ll still be able to say the words and phrases during normal day-to-day experience, no problem there.  But you will be inhibited from uttering them in the context – there’s that word again – of giving a public speech.
Huckabee: Could I, um… review the list of words and phrases first, just to make sure I’m not going to be uh… conditioned not to say something I might actually need to say in a speech sometime later?
Tom: Well, in fact, instead, it would much more prudent to have your advisors and the RNC compile the word and phrase list, and then have some trusted member of your staff transmit it to the therapist without your review.
Huckabee: Let me get this straight – you’re saying I’m not supposed to know what the words and phrases are before I get shocked with electricity when I say them?
Tom: That is the most effective approach, yes.
Huckabee: And that’s your advice to solve my problem, this ESAT stuff?
Tom: I’d say, it’s better than advice on damage control for your present predicament.  It’s prevention, and as everyone knows, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Huckabee: And I’d say, Mr. Collins, you have definitely demonstrated that your free advice is worth the price.
Tom: I’ll take that as a compliment, Governor.
Huckabee: Might as well.  Thanks.  ‘Bye, now.
Tom: Good day, Governor.