|
|
| |
| Mon, Dec. 1, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Huckabee's self-inflicted superficiality Sunday, Dec 9, 2007 By John Brummett It began to appear by the middle of last week that any derailing of Mike Huckabee's surge will come not from his ethical problems, which would be fair enough, or his tax record in Arkansas, which wouldn't. It might result in part from the tragically flawed judgment of his wanting Wayne Dumond paroled, and, more specifically, his shameful unwillingness to tell the truth about it. Then there's this: If Huckabee indeed fades after these 15 minutes, he clearly will have his own shallowness to blame. Note that I did not say stupidity. I did not say lack of skill. Obviously, this is a bright, talented and competent man. His superficiality stems not from a lack of aptitude, but from a lack of priority. He'd rather crack wise than bother with depth. An editorial writer once said Huckabee was the guy in school who didn't much study and made B-pluses. Huckabee himself once told me, "I'm the pharmacist, not the chemist." In other words, somebody else needs to do the hard work of making and testing the medicine, after which he'll gladly bowl them over with retail sales. Our Boy Mike has offered a presidential candidacy of personality, humor, a religious conservative foothold and an emergence through the attrition afflicting an altogether weak and flawed Republican field. The conventional thinking was Fred Thompson would fill this gap. But Fred has been a spectacular flop. So now Huckabee steps on to the high-definition screen, and, alas, there are visible blemishes. Real economic conservatives like those writing editorials for The Wall Street Journal cast their judgment on his flat national sales tax to replace the income tax, and found it hopelessly impractical, which, of course, it is. He didn't believe it in the first place. He grabbed the notion recklessly back when he was a second-tier candidate, looking for something, anything. Then people started paying attention to things Huckabee said back when no one was paying attention. There was that moment in one of those many debates. Huckabee was asked whether the United States should intervene to stop the genocide in Darfur. He said: "I think we have some role to play in it, but I guess what disturbs me even more, we have not even addressed the genocide that's going on and the infanticide in our own country with the slaughter of millions of unborn children. And we also have extraordinary poverty in this country. Yes, we ought to be involved. But you know something? There are a lot of people in America that don't think the only poverty is in Darfur. Understand there's poverty in the Delta." Darfur poses an epic issue of humanity, morality and America's proper international role and responsibility. Our Boy Mike obviously lacked any real command of it, if a clue to it. So, ever the bright kid who relied on talent and didn't study so much, he reached for the handy non sequitur of abortion. Then, as if to remind us of that populist side, he remarked on all the poor people he knows about and cares about in the Mississippi River Delta region. Then, fatefully, there was this: Huckabee sat for an on-the-record dinner Tuesday night in Des Moines with reporters. One of them brought up the national intelligence report of months before, and publicized early that day, that seemed to show that our experts had determined that Iran posed no active nuclear threat and wasn't even making any movement in that direction. This had been the lead item in the news for hours. The president was being accused of misrepresentations, demagoguery and warmongering. Yet Huckabee did not know what the reporter was talking about. This particular failing is more acutely his staff's than his own. You don't sit your guy at dinner in Des Moines with reporters a month before the Iowa caucuses without having briefed him on the biggest news of the day, even only superficially, which is all he would have desired. Huckabee thinks he's Reagan. But we've had another clueless president since the Gipper. The current one has given cluelessness a bad name. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
