Huckabee Foreign Affairs And Response To Attacks/The Testimony Of An Ideological Conservative Who Supports Huckabee

Here are links to video of Mike Huckabee’s appearances Sunday on CNN’s Late Edition and FOX News Weekend Live. In these videos, he responds to some of the attacks which, now that he’s leading in Iowa and other early states, and contending with Giuliani nationally, are all the news on Huckabee. The foremost matter was his second-guessing of this administration’s policy in one line of this extended article in Foreign Affairs magazine Foreign Affairs - America's Priorities in the War on Terror ... , which is linked below. And of course, as with the question asked of the New York Times reporter about Mormonism, that is the single passage lifted out and made an issue of in most media. Indeed, that is the very statement abstracted at the introduction of the article in Foreign Affairs, itself.

Romney charged him with insulting Bush (like a Democrat) and Romney radio-host henchman Hugh Hewitt has been using this article as his latest cudgel with which to bludgeon Huckabee, in this case with the assertion that Huckabee is naïve and simple. When challenged about having Huckabee on, Hewitt says that though invited, Huckabee refuses to appear. As far as I know, this may be the case and it may not. If it is, Huckabee may be certain that there is no way that he will be treated fairly, which I’m sure, is the case. But, I can’t determine what is true because it is evident that he’s dishonest in some cases and I don’t know of a clue that will indicate when. I usually want to leave open the possibility that a person is mistaken OR deceitful. But, I know that Hugh Hewitt is not as completely ignorant as many statements suggest, and his ignorant statements ONLY serve a single agenda. It is also clear that if Hewitt treated Romney’s inconsistencies with the same scorn that he does Huckabee’s statements, he would have nothing to do with Romney. I wonder what Hewitt has of such value vested in Romney, that he is willing to discredit himself for the possibility of doing damage to Huckabee.

Last week, there was one day in Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll in which Huckabee’s percentage dropped, putting him back into a first place tie with Giuliani. But, his margin returned on the following day, clearly illustrating the imprecision of the system. However, tonight there were suggestions that the surge has leveled off, with Scott Rasmussen himself appearing and citing a drop to a tie with Romney in South Carolina, and saying he expects to see the same in an Iowa poll, later this week. If this doesn’t snap back as well, are we seeing results from these attacks as the commenters suspect? I would certainly incline to think so, as broad and fierce as they have been, except for the long time that the rise continued as the attacks mounted, which made me think that perhaps the Internet has become a new buffer. After all, there is more information on all sides available on any question than could ever have been delivered through conventional media. Maybe, Huckabee’s version of Mitt Romney’s religion speech should be: “I’m a conservative and here’s what I mean and don’t mean by that…”

In any case, I want to present my case as a lifelong conservative who in fact, has been considered extreme by some, for Mike Huckabee, which I will do following the mentioned links.

Gov. Huckabee on Late Edition - 12/16/2007 - Part 1
- Gov. Huckabee on Late Edition - 12/16/2007 - Part 2
- Gov. Huckabee on Weekend Live - 12/16/2007

Rockin’ Huckabee posted “Why Not Huckabee?” Could not have said it better myself!

from Human Events: Social Conservatives Ask: Why Not Mike Huckabee? - HUMAN EVENTS

Also, be sure to investigate Huckabee’s official web site’s policy statements (there are also plenty of videos – also at HucksArmy.com - [Unofficial] Grassroots Headquarters for Mike Huckabee) and responses to the attacks

An Ideological Conservative Who Supports Huckabee

In the past 12 years, I have supported Alan Keyes in primaries in 1996 and 2000, and third parties in the general elections of 2000 and 2004. Fred Thompson has labeled Huckabee “a liberal.” Tonight he simply said, “He’s not a conservative.” Of course, Thompson is running for the same nomination. But, Alan Keyes also appeared on the same program, saying of Huckabee that (unlike some of the others mentioned) “…he’s good on the moral issues, but he’s liberal on everything else.” Keyes is a brittle ideologue: an able and cultivated mind that never set practical foot on the sullied ground after his work in the Reagan administration. He now makes of lucid conservatism, a caricature. A Christian, he makes of the attentive Christ, a scolding Jeremiah.

But anyway, if Huckabee is not conservative, why would an extremist like me support him? I’d say that I wouldn’t. But, I will say that my ideals have not changed, but in the past few years, my disposition has and perhaps consequently my approach to those ideals has shifted. Before the US engagement with terrorism, I might have been enthused, if futilely, by Ron Paul. My difference with him on that matter is one H-U-G-E and insurmountable difference. Unlike many posturing Democrats, I think Paul is sincere, but ideologically blinded to a grave reality: the world is a different place than it was in 1800. Terrorism today has been a bracing slap in the face. But frankly, our security and moral obligations have not been the same for a century or more. And also, like most politicians, Paul has little or none of the facility I am about to describe in Huckabee.

A few years ago, I submitted to the reality that social obligation was more than an ideological standoff. It came home clearly to me that the MOST significant division of men was not an ideological but a moral one. For the improvement of society, it is more important to work with those of noble intentions, even if they are mistaken, than with those who ideologically fall on this or that side of an ideological fault line with no necessary commitment to virtue: better to deliberate on the definition of goodness than to plant inflexible barriers to discussion. This is plainly so when your erstwhile ideological allies are more concerned with their own satisfaction than they were about social betterment, as was often the case in every y group that I had identified with, including Republicans, among whom I had clearly seen selfishness and deceit at work, just as I do, today.

The same is true of course, among Democrats. And that unfortunate truth is more alive among the activists in both parties, than it is among the many voters on the street who are immersed in their lives and only voting their consciences, whether judging productively or not. I would rather disagree and discuss what is right, than argue tactics with someone who agrees more closely on objectives but is indifferent on the virtues of the tactics by which those objectives are pursued. The old saying says that if you are not liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you are not conservative at forty, you have no brain. That’s harsh of course, and obviously popular among older conservatives. But, it brushes on a noble element on both sides.

Many years ago, I fretted having to explain to liberals that conservatives are not necessarily the selfish derelicts that they may be defined as. I believe that The United States is deep in defiance of the constraints of its founding documents. The Constitution was devised as a constraint on government power and a very rudimentary restraint on social morality. And it certainly was not to license government’s usurpation of the exercise of a supposed social morality. However the fact is that that is a battle long lost in a society of pervasive mass-communication. If I am going to communicate about American policy with many people, I have to acknowledge what their concerns are, even if I believe they are not in the province or capacity of the federal government to solve. We need to try explain and support what we believe ARE legitimate concerns, even if we don’t accept their prescriptions. There are many on both sides who are more concerned with power than with principle, however it is defined. There are THOUSANDS of them and among them are most with platforms or microphones. Forget them! Let’s focus on the MILLIONS who are pursuing goodness with their votes. And in order to get their ear, we must embody goodness in our actions and attitudes. If you insist that that has no place in government discussions: welcome to a lifetime of standoff and no prospect for the betterment of society. But, I wondered however ideological antagonists might ever be brought to practical cooperation. Now, that would be a mean and perhaps unattainable trick. Perhaps it was only a dream?

Then early this year, I saw Mike Huckabee engaging a partisan of the other side, who was disarmed because Huckabee was not the caricature he expected of a conservative. I probably saw for the first of many times, Huckabee’s statement that, “I’m a conservative but I’m not mad at anybody about it.” I bought Huckabee’s latest book and began tracking his moves relative to the presidential campaign that he was then only considering. I saw that he WAS a conservative, not only socially but in terms of both foreign and domestic policy. Huckabee cited the Constitution and social and fiscal government prudence more frequently than any major party candidate that I had seen in my lifetime. And that was particularly notable as this year’s field of infidels developed. That was particularly notable when he came under attack from people who claimed that they gauged him not “conservative” enough. First, The Club for Growth was clearly deceitful with an unseen agenda. (It turns out that money and alliances explained a lot of that). And of course it was remarkable as Huckabee gained ground on the pre-anointed “frontrunners,” who attacked his lack of conservatism irrespective of their own inconsistencies and posturings. The only one with any extraordinary character was John McCain, and his philosophical deficiencies were evident in both his rhetoric and his history. All of this made the criticisms of they and their supporters ring all the more hollow.

Especially given the manifest weaknesses of the other candidates, I can only account resistance to Huckabee to either dissatisfaction with his lack of anger or discomfort with his unshielded evangelical Christian faith: “My faith doesn’t just influence me, it defines me.” Bah! What kind of talk is that for the GOP establishment? Again, I’ll just describe it as “Icky!” But that is the foundation for not being angry. That is the disposition that would be adversaries find disarming. And, that is the unique potential spotted by new campaign Chairman Ed Rollins and Doug Patton in this article Huckabee Confounds Elites as Reagan Did , both of whom liken Huckabee’s engagement of the public to that of Ronald Reagan. Rich Lowry’s despairing of “Huckacide” if Mike is nominated, could not be farther from the truth. Huckabee alone can engage and lure voters of the sort I’m talking about who mean well, but incline to be Democrats, just as Reagan won the unifying support of “Reagan Democrats.”

I have written how, a few months ago, I came across a web site of constitutionalists with a blogging constitutional guru. I had come upon them because they had picked up on the story about Huckabee’s reception of the idea of a smoking ban, and were busy about trashing him. As I have previously said, Huckabee sad he would agree to such an idea as a workplace regulation, not as a regulation of the public. Checking the law that was passed in Arkansas, I saw that it exempted businesses open only to adults and/or employing 3 or fewer people.

I conceded that there is no constitutional license for such a thing. However, I said, we live in a society that is waist deep in libraries full of unconstitutional laws and government involveme4nt with the private sphere. Prominent in this relative ocean of reality is the fact that government has assumed liability for trillions of dollars worth of medical expense. Constitutional or not, those commitments were a bald and inevitable reality. Given that reality, ideological intransigence is a socially meaningless posture. And, it is mere prudence to encourage or discourage behaviors that will both heighten both expense and diminish quality of life. Recognizing these realities, Huckabee is the one to lead the country to a more unified course of social improvement. He isn’t conservative because he’s selfish or dispassionate, or angry or ideologically inflexible to the point of dysfunction in reality. He is conservative for the right reason: because unconstrained liberal government does not improve but only diminishes a healthy society.

Why did Mike Huckabee, from a Democrat family, in a Democrat town in a Democrat state, become a Republican? Not because he hates Democratic PEOPLE, but because Democratic philosophies are socially detrimental. When Republicans care more about their party or their feelings than they do about America, they deserve to lose, and they probably will. Huckabee refers to a preference for vertical policy that reaches upward than horizontal politics that divides. His modus operandi and the source of the acrimony in his own party are all right up front in his repeated aphorisms and stories. And he is what I set up as a worthy ambition f a few years ago: a conservative of the mind (frankly more so than any of his competitors or any president of the past 30 years, at least) and a liberal of the heart.