Confused & Concerned About Huckabee

Victor Davis Hanson is rightly confused about Huckabee’s latest foray into world politics:

I don’t know much about Mike Huckabee, but found his aw-shucks  Foreign Affairs essay strange to say the least (e.g., cf.  “The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad.”)

But what he offers inter alia  is the rehashed plan of invading the nuclear, nominal ally Pakistan (“I prefer to cut to the chase by going after al Qaeda’s safe havens in Pakistan.” ) while reaching out to Iran, the de facto non-nuclear enemy, by offering normal diplomatic relations–of course, only after strengthening sanctions and declaring the Revolutionary Guards terrorists. He laments losing the good will once shown by Iran in its 2001 shared goal of defeating the Taliban-almost like lamenting the needless estrangement of the Soviet Union in 1946 after we once had been so close in working to defeat Hitler.

It seems Huckabee wanted to convey that he would be different from George Bush more then anything else.  Just like the Democrats are doing.  But at the same time he would continue some of his policies.  He wants to talk to Iran more but supports sanctions meanwhile he wants to invade a ally of our country, and a nuclear armed ally at that, to get one man.  Nevermind the fact that once OBL is gone another will take his place and continue on in his steed. 

I mean who wrote this trash?  Barack Obama?  It all sounds like he is making it up as he goes along.

For more read Mike’s excellent piece.

UPDATE

Beldar had to come out of his blogging break to blog on Huck’s moronic piece:

The first two sentences (emphasis mine) are Kumbaya diplomacy at its most
deplorable, and if the candidate really believes them, then he’s far too naïve
to become president — at least as the GOP nominee. Anyone who really
thinks that the problems of the world boil down to American unwillingness to
“open up [and] reach out” is an irredeemable idiot.

Unfortunately, the balance of the article after that summary is also riddled
with platitudes and soft-headed mush. Some of the platitudes are nominally
“conservative” in tone, and Huckabee gets a few substantive points right, but
that’s almost (it seems) by accident, or in contradiction to other themes. His
Obamaesque policy toward Pakistan is reckless and feckless (and even if it were
wise to pursue, it would not be wise to telegraph).

~~~

I know that Huckabee is having to assemble a foreign policy platform on the fly
and without any substantial experience in the field. But the fact that he’s
chosen to engage in mindless (and in my view, very badly unjustified)
Bush-bashing in the lead sentences of his most important foreign policy
statement troubles me a great deal. He literally doesn’t know what he’s talking
about himself, and he’s obviously repeating things from others who are either
equally as clueless or else affirmatively hostile to at least some of the basic
tenets that have characterized Republican presidential foreign policy for many
decades.

UPDATE II

Bryan at Hot Air goes into Huckabee’s latest scandal, that being the DWI convict who he granted clemency to after receiving 10 grand from him.  Just one more to add to the list.  But Bryan’s belief that Huck’s rise is because of one near endorsement is quite startling:

I think Huckabee is getting enormous lift from one near-endorsement he earned
that hardly anyone is talking about. It’s from Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of
Saddleback Church in California, and it appeared
on Huckabee’s official website in November.

~~~

People who don’t spend much time in church or who don’t pay much attention to
trends in church settings probably aren’t familiar with too many pastors, or at
least aren’t familiar with many pastors who haven’t been caught bilking their
followers out of millions of dollars or been caught in some other corruption,
but chances are most of you have heard of Rick Warren. He’s the author of the
mega best seller The Purpose-Driven Life. He’s also clean as a whistle
on the corruption front. And he’s in my opinion the single most influential
Protestant pastor in America, by far, and may be the most influential pastor in
the world. Pat Robertson and others get much more media attention, but Warren
either controls or strongly influences tens of thousands of churches around the
country through the aforementioned book and through his many church educational
programs. It’s difficult to overstate Warren’s influence on some churches,
especially the ones led by pastors who literally buy Warren’s sermons (complete with
Power Point slide shows) from his web site and deliver them from their local
pulpits. 

~~~

I’m not saying that that Warren statement is responsible for Huckabee’s rise.
I am saying that the perception that Warren endorsed Huckabee has probably flown
through many of the churches, most of which are Southern Baptist, that follow
Warren’s lead most closely. That’s bound to benefit Huckabee. If I’m right about
that, then Mike Huckabee is positioning himself to be the first Purpose-Drive
president, and because of that he’s going to be very tough to stop in the GOP
primary.

Bryan is careful to add more then a few times that none of this is proven.  He suspects it.  But if he is right that Huck will be tough to beat in the primary then we can kiss the White House goodbye for quite sometime.

Not good news.

Curt

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