The New and Unimproved Mike Huckabee

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The old Mike Huckabee was a anti-abortion spokesman for the religious right but was a populist and almost like able. Mike Huckabee has become just another hypocritical lying political hack encouraging the worst fears and prejudices of those who listened to the old Mike Huckabee.  Not something a Christian should become but something we might expect from a FOX news talking head and would be candidate. 

Steve Kornacki takes a look at The New, Scary Mike Huckabee.

The old Mike Huckabee:

I miss the old Mike Huckabee. No, not the circa-1998 porker who could have given John Madden a run for his money in a turducken
eating contest; I mean the Mike Huckabee of 2007�the charming,
warm-hearted country preacher who, it seemed, genuinely wanted to give
a good account of his religion and his political ideology.

This was the Huckabee who, rather than simply
catering to anti-abortion conservatives with fiery rhetoric, challenged
those who call themselves pro-life to think about the implications of
that label.

�I believe that life begins at conception,� he told Time in March �07, �but I don�t believe it ends at birth. I
believe we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to provide a good
education, a safe neighborhood, health care�That's why I talk so much
about the need for music and art programs in our schools. I know some
conservatives think it's foolish, but I just believe it's necessary to
build whole, creative individuals.�

This Huckabee was intent on replacing the
judgmental, condemnatory, and reflexively anti-government model of
Christian conservatism pioneered by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson
with one that recognized the responsibility of government to provide
earthly help to all of God�s children.

�I�m a grace Christian, not a law Christian,� he said in that same Time story.

This Mike Huckabee didn�t apologize for
raising gas taxes to pay for badly needed infrastructure repairs in
Arkansas, refused to support President Bush�s �07 veto of the expansion
of the Children�s Health Insurance Program, and took exception to the
right�s push to strip government benefits from the families of illegal
immigrants.

�[Y]ou don�t punish a child for the crimes a parent commits,� he declared. �And that�s my position.�

The new Mike Huckabee sounds a lot like his fellow FOXites Sean Hannity and Glen Beck.

Since last November�s election, a new
Huckabee has emerged�one primarily interested in catering to the fears
and biases of the G.O.P.�s right-wing base, no matter how calculating,
or disingenuous, or just plain mean this makes him seem.

Take his latest venture into the headlines,
courtesy of his inflammatory�and baldly dishonest�assertion that, under
the health care reform program championed by Barack Obama, a dying Ted
Kennedy would have been denied care and told to �take a pain pill and
ride it home.�

That came a few weeks after his used his Fox News show to help foment the right�s Town Hall rage with a hysterical, fact-free monologue that savaged Obama�s nonexistent effort to create a Canadian-style, single-payer health care system in the U.S.

Before that, Huckabee�the same guy who used
to defend his Arkansas tax hikes for all of the good work and job
creation they helped achieve�blasted Obama�s economic stimulus package as, of all things, �anti-religious.�

Oh, and then there was the trip to Israel,
where�on foreign soil�he did his best to feed the Obama-is-anti-Israel
madness, attacking the American president for �telling Jewish people in
Israel where they should and should not live.� (Presumably, Huckabee
was talking about Jewish people in the Palestinian territories, and not
Israel proper.)

And these are just his greatest hits. It�s
clear what�s going on here: Huckabee has learned his lessons from his
�08 campaign and, in the run-up to the inevitable 2012 follow-up bid,
has morphed into Romney.

Just like the former Massachusetts governor
skipped the hard work and simply embraced every position and talking
point that polled well with conservatives last year, Huckabee is now
only interested in giving his target audience what they want.

Perhaps it's time for Reverend Huckabee to go back and read the words of Jesus.  Of course his obvious political ambition will preclude that.