At the risk…
… of beating a dead horse, I’d like to bring to your attention an opinion piece by Peggy Noonan of WSJ. In this quote she sums up exceptionally well how someone can be a faithful Christian, and yet still recognize the danger that Mike Huckabee poses to us as conservatives:
I love the cross. The sight of it, the fact of it, saves me, literally and figuratively. But there is a kind of democratic politesse in America, and it has served us well, in which we are happy to profess our faith but don’t really hit people over the head with its symbols in an explicitly political setting, such as a campaign commercial, which is what Mr. Huckabee’s ad was.
I wound up thinking this: That guy is using the cross so I’ll like him. That doesn’t tell me what he thinks of Jesus, but it does tell me what he thinks of me. He thinks I’m dim. He thinks I will associate my savior with his candidacy. Bleh.
[my bold]
My faith is an extremely personal quality of my life. It isn’t always as strong as it should be. In fact, I can safely say it’s never as strong as it should be, but that doesn’t mean that I look to any politician to rectify that for me. That Huckabee presumes to do that is deeply and personally insulting to me. I’ll see Peggy Noonan’s “bleh” and raise her a “spit”.
She goes on to debunk the “victim” card that Huckabee seeks to play:
He plays the victim well. Others want to “trip him up,” but he’ll “get my message out there.” His foes are “Wall Street-Washington” insiders, elitists. On the “Today” show he said his critics are the type who never liked evangelical Christians. When one of them runs, these establishment types say “ ’Oh my gosh, now they’re serious, they don’t want to just show up and vote, they actually would want to be part of the discussion and really talk about issues that include hunger and poverty and things.’ ”
This is a form of populist manipulation. Evangelical Christians have been strong in the Republican Party since the 1970s. President Bush and Karl Rove helped them become more important. The suggestion that they are a small and abused group within the GOP is strange. It is as if the Reagan Democrats, largely Catholic and suburban, who buoyed the Republican Party from the late ’70s through 2004, and who were very much part of the GOP coalition, decided to announce that Catholics have been abused within the party, and it’s time for Christmas commercials with floating Miraculous Medals.
Yes. Give it a rest Huckabee. You’re using the same tactics that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Quannel X use and it’s no less disgusting from you than it is from them.
December 21st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Dude it is really amazing how when my daughter and I first heard about Huckabee we thought two things…..
1. He seems like a nice guy and seems to say all the right things.
2. We have a longtime friend with the same last name and we both smiled at each other when we saw Huckabee on TV.
Now the more I see him and learn about him I get really leery about him. IMO you aren’t beating a dead horse.
December 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm
As someone else posted, he would be another Jimmy Carter in GOP clothes. He is a “nice guy” and what we need is a hard nosed conservative who will duke it out with the rest of the worlds leaders for our future. And in congress. Imagine him going up against Reid and Pelosi. Not a pretty picture. We need a whole lot more than he can muster.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:58 am
Dude great post and reflects my feelings also. I don’t need someone making a commercial to remind me what Christmas is all about, while he runs for president. I don’t need a father, a pastor. This guy makes my skin crawl.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Aren’t we forgetting Donell Y. I am sure he has some input to give us.