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Huckabee the energizer talker Sunday, Jan 20, 2008 By John Brummett I've told you before and I'll tell you again. Mike Huckabee talks just to talk. He talks to ingratiate. He talks to win the favor of the grandstand that happens to rise before him. It doesn't mean anything, really. I wrote as much last month, then Huckabee went straight out and confirmed it, essentially. People were making something fretful of an old quote of his to a religious gathering in 1998. He said we need to take the country back for Jesus because the real answers aren't found in government, but the Lord. He said he got into government to inject Jesus into it. People gasped: Wasn't that mixing church and state? I contended it wasn't, really. I explained that it was merely Huckabee being Huckabee, a disc jockey mouthing whatever the programming format of the day was. A few days later Huckabee was on "Meet the Press," and he got asked about this old quote. He explained that the comment was delivered to a religious group and was therefore appropriate to the occasion. In other words, he only wants to mix church and state when he's talking to people who want to mix church and state. Don't you see? He's not dangerous to constitutional principles. He's just an agreeable talker. Some people call that a demagogue, but that's way harsh. That brings us to one day last week in Michigan, where Huckabee didn't fare so well. For that reason, he felt obliged to appeal to his only potential base, meaning the religious kooks. He got up in front of a nest of them and lambasted his Republican opponents who, while opposing abortion choice like he, don't want to go as far as he to amend the U.S. Constitution to forbid it. They want to leave it to the respective states, which is what would happen if Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas could persuade Kennedy to repeal Roe v. Wade. So here's what Huckabee said to this group last week: "I have opponents who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do - to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view." Many people have become upset about this remark. They think it's scary. They think it's the American Taliban. They explain that values gleaned from a belief in a god are vital to civilized society. But they explain that views of God's will differ from one to another, sometimes on the same church pew. They explain that when a politician starts talking about changing our very constitutional law to reflect his personal view of what God commands, then we're getting into deeply troubling territory, one where freedom of religion would be at risk. But Huckabee didn't really mean it, or, if he did, he didn't mean it permanently or as a result of any great study and deliberation. Huckabee himself once acknowledged that different people "drink a different Jesus juice." It was kind of like what happened a few days later in South Carolina. Huckabee confronted a grandstand filled with people angry about illegal immigration. He got wound up and decreed that we should ban immigration altogether from countries that "sponsor and harbor" terrorists. He didn't say that at his next stop, either because the grandstand was filled with people of other interests or his staff had explained to him during the transport that what he'd said was a tad arbitrary and perhaps impractical. His new policy advisor, reformed columnist Jim Pinkerton, explained to reporters at that next stop that Huckabee had merely intended to call for a "thorough review" of immigration policies. Huckabee once was tolerant on immigration, you might recall. Vote for Huckabee for president if you want or must. Just keep in mind that he's a grain-of-salt guy. It'll keep you from getting too worked up, whether pro or con. ------- 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. |
