Huckabee at the Values Voter Nadir

Mike Huckabee Sums it all up:

"It sounds so good, and it's such a warm message to say we're not gonna deny anyone from a preexisting condition," Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. "Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you something from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance. And you can call your insurance agent and say, "I'd like to buy some insurance for my house." He'd say, "Tell me about your house." "Well sir, it burned down yesterday, but I'd like to insure it today." And he'll say "I'm sorry, but we can't insure it after it's already burned." Well, no preexisting conditions."

I find it hard to summon up an intelligent counter-argument. It's so utterly morally bankrupt, particularly from a man of such conspiciously public "faith" that the most cogent thing I can say is "drink bleach and die in a fire."

Because, well, that's what he just said to you and yours!  So while it may be rude on the face of it, well, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Render Unto Ceasar

I have a serious problem with the ultimate credibility of both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, which has nothing to do with their politics. It's with what both claim to inform and shape their politics, their faith.

Both are more than willing to cite the importance of the Bible, and both are proud of their significant religious ordinations; both are hold ordinations in their respective faiths, and Romney is the equivalent of a Christian Bishop.

Furthermore, it seems to me that any fair-minded person, in reviewing the accomplishments of both men, which are honestly significant and important, than it's evident that they have, within the limits of human nature and circumstance - strived to honor the spirit as well as the letter of doctrinal guidance. These are not bad things. Indeed, in many ways, both men illustrate the impact of religious culture in society in it's best light - and I say this while taking direct issue with much of what each stands for, religiously and politically.

But if we are to praise men of faith who do their best to honor the words of Christ as they understand them in the world, we must heed Matthew 6:24 :

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

In context, Matthew chapter six is purportedly the direct words of Christ and is indisputably the foundation of some of the oldest and most basic Christian doctrines. In other words, it's pretty much a litmus test for people who say they are Christians, or (in Mitt's case) that their faith derives from and amplifies Christianity.

While my understanding of Mormonism is weak at best, I know of nothing in it that would dispute this passage. And aside from anything else, the words stand for themselves; they are persuasive due to them being a matter of common sense, one that is well understood within common law, which would express it as "conflict of interest."

If this were the only leg to my argument, though, it would not be worth uttering, for of course the issue goes to motive, and motive we cannot know. No, the more critical issue is this:

Both men, in taking direct ordinations and embracing certain spiritual obligations and duties, have accepted what is generally understood by persons of faith to be a higher, overriding duty. And - in the case of BOTH Mitt's Mormonism and Mike's Southern Baptist faith, there are going to be times when it will not be possible to come to an honorable compromise between the prior charge of the priesthood and the later oath of office.

The only way either could legitimately take the oath would be by renouncing their prior ordinations. But then, that would not really reflect well upon how seriously they took the duties and obligations they had sworn before their visions of God to uphold.

It seems to me that as things stand, the only way I can assume that either will "faithfully execute the office of the President" is if I assume that they were keeping their fingers crossed when they made their earlier promises, for the honorable exercise of their offices requires them to put the interests of the faithful and of their faith ahead of anything else, to a far greater and more stringent degree than is required of someone who is merely a congregate in good standing.

If I assume they are both men of faith to the degree I am expected to believe, if I assume they are sincere in their beliefs, if I assume they are faithful to their various religious doctrines which both claim overriding divine authority, I must then assume that in conscience and in practice that doctrine and faith will trump Constitution and Law every single time. And, as both support amending the constitution itself to take rights away from gays who are doctrinally excluded from marriage within either faith, we clearly see how this conflict resolves for each.

I don't ascribe this to some nefarious hidden agenda, I ascribe it to perfectly sincere faith, executed by men of conscience to the best of their ability. Believing as they both do, there is no other path of conscience.

Which means, alas, that neither man should, in conscience, be running for political office, knowing full well that they cannot and must not serve two masters.

The only question is this: which one will they choose to betray?

The President must be president for all citizens - not just citizens of a particular faith or range of faiths. The President is the safeguard of our liberties - not the figure that would impose duties upon us by fiat. We are offered two men from two very authoritarian religions who, we must assume, believe not only that it's proper that moral standards be imposed, but who each hold offices that make them responsible for doing just that.

I'd have a problem with that even if I were a member of such a faith - and I rather think that my objections would be even more profound if I held a similar ordination in a similar faith.

That is why the founders somewhat reluctantly agreed that there should be a separation of Church and State and forbade the establishment of any religion, even the rather inoffensive Deist faith.

Because a man may not serve two masters - and neither may a government.

tag: religion, faith, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, election 2008, Matthew 6:24

The Slime Behind the Smile : Mike Huckabee - serial rapist pardoner.

As disturbing as it was to find out from the Huffington Post that Mike Huckabee allegedly pardoned Wayne Dumond due to some anti-Clinton hysteria alleging a "frameup," in what appears to have been a particularly irrational Clinton bashing exercise gone horribly, horribly wrong, it turns out that it really wasn't that hard to convince Huckabee to let a serial rapist and probable recidivist go free.

It turns out that - over howls of protests from parole boards, victims families and prosecutors of both parties - you deserved clemency if just clutched a bible and professed to be "born again" with the degree of sincerity it seems born-again Republicans expect from one another. That, or if you raked leaves at the Mansion really well. "Or at least, that was one wry observation from a prosecutor who clearly wasn't willing to go so far as to say that clemencies are for sale.

And indeed, it may well be that he's dumb enough to piss in his AG's cornflakes for free.

There is a long, long list of offenders Huckabee has granted clemency to, many who have re offended. Several of these persons had been sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole by a jury of their peers.

Now, I'm all too well aware of the sorts of things that may occur that lead to someone being unjustly convicted - I'm rather a fan of DNA and The Innocence Project. But in such cases, there should be a very high standard - which The Innocence Project meets, by re-examining DNA evidence.

But this is not about a governor carefully reviewing a case and finding grounds for reasonable doubt - in Huckabee's case, the process appears to be whimsical, insensitive and entirely inexplicable to the legal community.

When you talk to prosecutors around the state, many of them will tell you they're unhappy that Gov. Huckabee pardons criminals without letting law-enforcement officials or victims' families know why he's doing it, as he's required by law.
___ "He doesn't take giving clemency very seriously," complains Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld, who will push for new legislation next year to make the clemency process less secretive.

One particularly sore point is his arrogance; signally and contrary to the Arkansas state constitution, he refuses to explain his reasons for granting clemency.

Herzfeld successfully sued to keep a murderer named Don Jeffers behind bars (at least for a while longer) after Huckabee granted him clemency without explanation as required by law: "On granting an application (for executive clemency), the Governor shall include in his written order the reasons thereforeŠ."
___Attorney General Mike Beebe, in nullifying the pardon, agreed that the governor had erred when he didn't give reasons why he had pardoned Jeffers and didn't even contact the prosecutor or the victim's family about how he felt about the pardon.
___"It was a tremendous victory," says the 30-year-old prosecutor. "This was not only the first time a prosecutor had filed a lawsuit against a governor but had actually won." Jeffers had strangled a Bryant man during a home burglary in 1980 and is serving a life sentence without parole for murder and 25 years for armed robbery after he plea bargained to avoid the death penalty.

Reportedly, the fact that a felon has lied on a clemency application doesn't concern Huckabee;

He [Herzfeld] is fighting clemency for an-other Saline County killer named Denver Dual Witham, who is also serving a life sentence without parole.
___In 1974, Witham and a cousin beat their victim to death out in the woods with a lead pipe – and beat him repeatedly so that the victim's face was smashed almost beyond recognition. "His entire face was gone," the prosecutor says.
___He accuses Witham of lying on his clemency petition to make it seem that he had killed his victim in "a barroom brawl" – as if that had made the crime less awful.
___"He's a liar," Herzfeld says of Witham, who could face perjury charges because of his whitewashed clemency application.
___Herzfeld says Witham, who plays in the prison band, hid five previous felonies from his clemency application and had threatened the previous sheriff.
___"This is the person the governor wants to let out of prison," the prosecutor says. "No word yet on whether the governor will change his mind or go ahead and grant clemency to this convicted murderer who lied on his clemency application and made threats towards former public officials," Herzfeld told us.
___"The governor has to wait 30 days from the date he announced his intent to grant clemency on May 21. My guess is that the governor will release his decision on Witham late this Friday afternoon before the long holiday weekend."

I've no idea what's happening in regards to this case, but I can't imagine what could possibly cause a reasonable Governor of either party to overlook such abuse of process that it could even become an issue. It would not be "could face" but "would face" perjury charges, and I'd take a personal interest in insuring that the inmate's circumstances changed for the worse. I would pretty much assume that response of any governor of any party.

This is apparently a long-running scandal in the Governor home state, but it's apparently news to the GOP leadership, who still apparently distrust that "internet thingie" enough to do a quick Google to find any emergent scandals. Heck, never mind that; his actual positions on the issues contain something to offend just about everyone.

Of course, over at the Daily Kos, devout Democrats hold prayer vigils in hopes of his nomination, observing that a candidate that splits the Republicans between the Religious Right and everyone else AND who has Willie Horton as an invisible running mate is pretty much a free pass for any Democratic candidate with a pulse.

The problem for the GOP is they can't really take down Huckster because most of the things that are so crazy about him actually help him with the evangelical base. Even the rape-murderer he pushed let go can be spun that he thought the guy changed from being 'born again'. Huck's views on AIDS victims being quarantined, and being homosexual means you are a public health risk are of course apalling to us and the majority of Americans, but to the evangelical base, this won't hurt him at all. So now the GOP is left with their establishment candidates, flawed as they are, (Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Thompson) battling and splitting up the non-evangelical base as Huck takes the lionshare of the evangelical base. It's a recipe for disaster for the GOP. Now with the frontrunner's bullseye on him, story after story will come out in the media of his crazy and kooky views, but those stories won't turn off the evangelical GOP base, just everybody else.

I concur. And my hunch - and that's all that it is, a hunch - is that it may well end up with Ron Paul getting the nomination. Not because of his high positives (I'd call them moderate positives) but because of the overwhelming negatives carried by everyone else. Even those turned off by his anti-war stance may well vote for him rather than giving Hillary (or whoever) a walkover.

Many say (with probable accuracy) that "he can't win the nomination," but I'm starting to think that it's a case where everyone else is going to lose worse.

I swear to Ghu, I do feel for the average, traditional moderate American Conservative, they really must be wondering where their leaders found this pack of jokers. Not one really viable candidate - and I reluctantly include Ron in that; there's no way in any normal election that he'd be getting the attention he's getting.

I'm surprised there isn't a movement underway to impeach the Republican National Committee.

That Inexplicable Clinton Magic

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Politically, there existed a fervent movement that believed Dumond was the victim of a Bill Clinton vendetta, carried out by the state's Democratic political machine. That movement, which had helped Huckabee ascend to power just months earlier in 1996, ramped up pressure on the newly elected governor to rectify a wrong. Huckabee himself was either friends with or associated to several of the key activists who publicly criticized Dumond's arrest. And Huckabee's particular religious background made him disposed to believing that Dumond -- who would go on to rape and murder another woman upon his release -- was either innocent of his crimes or had been rehabilitated in prison. Those close to the case say that in the end, it was a combination of these factors that compelled Huckabee to ignore evidence, forgo advice, and ultimately press the parole board for the release of Wayne Dumond.

I have never quite understood what it is about Bill Clinton that provokes hatred to such a degree that even otherwise fairly sensible people are perfectly willing to commit obvious and outrageous perversions of justice in what generally turned out to be futile efforts to discredit him. It turns out that this perverse "magic" predates his presidency and, of course, Ken Starr.