While Mike Huckabee seems destined to leave the Republican stage, the extremist assault on the separation on church and state he represents (see here and here) will remain a fixture in American politics for years to come.

So, as Mike Huckabee prepares his return to his Arkansas and his diet of fried chicken and squirrel, here then are Yet Another 10 Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism:

21. Huckabee Encourages Televangelist to Defy Senate Investigation
22. Huckabee Wants Americans to be "Soldiers for Christ" in "God's Army"
23. Huckabee Calls for a Faith-Based Constitution
24. Huckabee Wants to Crimalize Abortion Providers
25. Huckabee Vows to Deport All Illegal Aliens
26. Huckabee Equates Homosexuality with Bestiality
27. Huckabee Says the Lord Gave Him Wisdom During GOP Debates
28. Huckabee Gets Scatalogical in Defense of the Confederate Flag
29. Huckabee Compares Search for Iraq WMD to Easter Egg Hunt
30. Huckabee Calls for Taxes on Pimps, Prostitutes and Drug Dealers

21. Huckabee Encourages Televangelist to Defy Senate Investigation
Televangelist and Huckabee fundraiser Kenneth Copeland is among six prominent broadcast ministers being investigated for "improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles." But Copeland has refused to turn over documents requested by Republican Chuck Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee, claiming of the material "It's not yours, it's God's."

Recognizing the impact that his "holy war against 'Brother Grassley'" could have on Huckabee's presidential campaign, Copeland gave his friend the opportunity to disassociate himself from the ministry. Unsurprisingly, Huckabee stood by his man and backed Copeland in his defiance of the United States Senate. As Copeland related:

Huckabee "hollered at me on the phone. He said, 'Are you kidding me? Why should I stand with them and not with you? They've only got an 11 percent approval rating.'"

"I said, 'Yeah, that's my man,'" Copeland said of Huckabee.

22. Huckabee Wants Americans to be "Soldiers for Christ" in "God's Army"
That the former minister Huckabee would support a potentially corrupt evangelical pastor over the elected representatives of the American people should come as no surprise. In 1998, after all, Huckabee proclaimed that his political mission was to "take this nation back for Christ."

Just days before the New Hampshire primary, Huckabee used the pulpit of a Granite State church to deliver a sermon urging congregants to join him in his crusade. Despite his own non-service in the military, Huckabee seemed quite comfortable trafficking in martial analogies:

"When we become believers, it's as if we have signed up to be part of God's Army, to be soldiers for Christ," Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience.

"When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go," he said. "It's no longer your life; you've signed it over."

Likening service to God to service in the military, Huckabee said "there is suffering in the conditioning for battle" and "you obey the orders."

23. Huckabee Calls for a Faith-Based Constitution
Not content to merely recruit more troops in his war for souls, Huckabee during the Michigan primary said Americans need Americans must "amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards."

Addressing a crowd in Warren, Michigan, Huckabee declared his personal crusade to amend the Constitution by copying and pasting from the Bible:

"I have opponents in this race 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 thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

In case there was any remaining doubt, that astounding statement eviscerated Huckabee's pretense of upholding the separation of church and state. In December, Governor Huckabee offered this charade on Meet the Press, words which obviously are no longer operative:

"The key issue of real faith is that it never can be forced on someone. And never would I want to use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else's faith or to restrict."

24. Huckabee Wants to Crimalize Abortion Providers
No doubt, one of his God's standards that Huckabee would like reflected in the Constitution concerns abortion.

But Mike Huckabee doesn't merely support a so-called human life amendment. Appearing on Meet the Press on December 30, 2007, Huckabee said he not only wanted to outlaw abortions, but wanted to criminalize abortion providers as well. As ThinkProgress summarized:

Mike Huckabee said that as President he would seek to "find some way to sanction" doctors "who took money to provide abortions to women if he succeeded in outlawing the procedure." "I don't know that you'd put him in prison," added Huckabee. He said that he would "not support penalizing women who sought abortions even if they were outlawed" because he considers a woman who seeks an abortion to be "a victim, not a criminal."

For his part, Huckabee at least stopped short of the position held by physician and Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn. Coburn has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions.

25. Huckabee Vows to Deport All Illegal Aliens
Earlier in the Republican primaries, Mike Huckabee came under withering assault over his Arkansas record of providing educational benefits to the children of illegal aliens and his plea to immigrant bashing xenophobes in his party that "we're better than that." In a November debate, Huckabee argued:

"Our country is better than that, to punish children for what their parents did in breaking the law. If that costs me the election, it costs me the election, but somewhere along the line we cannot just pander to the anger and hostility without challenging it."

As it turns out, not so much. Putting Republican primary politics ahead of principle, Huckabee wildly - and abruptly - reversed course. Just six weeks later, Huckabee rolled up a draconian package of measure to combat illegal aliens, including a pledge to deport all 12 million currently in the United States. "Some would say it's a tough plan," Huckabee said, adding, "It is, but it's also fair and reasonable."

26. Huckabee Equates Homosexuality with Bestiality
In his 1998 book, Kids Who Kill, Huckabee laid virtually of all of America's ills at the feet of everyone - and everything - he hates:

"Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities."

"It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations - from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia."

His candidate attacked for having equated homosexuality with necrophilia, Huckabee spokesman Joe Carter responded, "No way is he saying that homosexuality is like having sex with dead people. That's not it at all."

Apparently, what Huckabee meant to do was compare same-sex marriage and bestiality. In an interview with BeliefNet, Huckabee joined the ranks of GOP Senators Rick Santorum and John Cornyn in decrying the slippery to man-on-dog or man-on-box turtle marriage:

"I think the radical view is to say that we're going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal."

27. Huckabee Says the Lord Gave Him Wisdom During GOP Debates
In that same interview with BeliefNet, Huckabee provided insight into what pundits of all stripes describe as his excellent performances in the Republican debates. Asked when if there were any moments during the campaign when he felt God's presence, Huckabee replied:

"Oh, absolutely. Especially some times in the debates when I get asked some question and I'm thinking, 'Oh my'...I felt like the Lord truly gave me wisdom and responses that were truly needed at that time."

That the Lord provided Huckabee with crib notes should come as no surprise. After all, Huckabee previously took a phone a cell phone call from God during a GOP governors event and later attributed his meteoric rise in the polls to divine intervention.

28. Huckabee Gets Scatalogical in Defense of the Confederate Flag
That Mike Huckabee pandered to South Carolina antebellum boosters with a ringing defense of the Confederate flag also should have come as no surprise. Huckabee, like Trent Lott before him, had addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor to the White Citizens Councils of Jim Crow days. More important, hewanted to highlight John McCain past troubles on the issue in the run up to the Palmetto State primary.

What was unexpected was that the Baptist minister seemed quite comfortable using a scatological reference in making his unsurprising appeal to the neo-Confederate crowd:

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do."

29. Huckabee Compares Search for Iraq WMD to Easter Egg Hunt
Throughout the campaign, Mike Huckabee has repeatedly displayed his glaring inexperience on national security and foreign policy issues. In December, Huckabee famously showed complete ignorance of the controversial Iran National Intelligence Estimate. Then last week, Governor Huckabee compared the Iraq war to an Easter egg hunt, with Saddam's WMD mysteriously hidden on the territory of U.S. ally Jordan:

"Everybody can look back and say, oh well we didn't find the weapons. Doesn't meet that they weren't there. Just because you didn't find every Easter egg didn't mean it wasn't planted."

"I think it's more likely that that weapons of mass destruction that we know that he at one time had, he used weapons against the Kurds, good chance they may have gone to Jordan. We don't know where they are."

Asked days later by Fox News' Chris Wallace last Sunday if he had any evidence to support his claim, Huckabee admitted, "I don't have any evidence."

30. Huckabee Calls for Taxes on Pimps, Prostitutes and Drug Dealers
Mike Huckabee has made support of the so-called Fair Tax a centerpiece of his campaign. But faced with an overwhelming consensus that ending the income tax in favor of a national consumption tax would ensure a massive redistribution of wealth to - and tax burden away from - the richest Americans, Mike Huckabee came up with an innovative new sales pitch.

As he told a gathering at the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce in New Hampshire, the key is the windfall from taxing sinners:

"You end the underground economy. Illegals, prostitutes, pimps, gamblers, drug dealers - everybody pays taxes."

While Mike Huckabee's most dangerous pronouncements involve his zealous determination to save souls for the next life, his radical tax proposals would surely impoverish them in this one.

For more episodes in the radically reactionary life and times of Mike Huckabee, see:

—Perrspective 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) |

7 Comments

Dude, that's a great write up and all, but Huck is going to be completely out of this race in five days.

You should have just waited and saved yourself a lot of work.

Posted by Lawrence on January 31, 2008 6:15 PM

I've seen the three pieces you assembled on Huckabee and think it important that you did. People needed to be warned about this radical. I think the fact his campaign fizzled after Iowa reflects that Americans came to learn just how dangerous he really is.

Posted by Jose on February 3, 2008 11:49 AM

Can McCain seriously be considering this freak for VP?

Posted by Linda_L on February 7, 2008 8:59 AM

With regard to item 28 above, does it not seem strange that someone vying for the candidacy from the party of Lincoln is pandering to a crowd of confederate flagwavers? And, judging by what he wants Yankees to do with the pole, would he respond to the charge that "The confederate flag isn't fit to wipe my Yankee ass," with "Oh yes it is!!"

Posted by Ian on February 7, 2008 9:30 AM

Thanks. This is a great reference.

Posted by Batocchio on February 7, 2008 10:52 AM

Love him or hate him but Huckabee is quite the orator,his politics may be thought extreme but i still find him quite likable,ok so called on taxes to be imposed on the crazy of society-whores and drug dealers,but this is only if the NARCS should fail to do their job.
....................................
mani kanna
addictionrecovery.net/arizona

Posted by mani kanna on July 1, 2008 1:14 AM

I just think it's funny that Jose wrote how concerned he was that McCain might have chosen Huckabee for his running mate (I was too, at the time.) Then McCain goes and picks Sarah Palin, who has the same political ideology as Huckabee and half the IQ. Though that's not saying a whole lot about Huckabee's IQ given some of the atrociously ignorant comments listed above.

Posted by Whitney on June 19, 2009 3:50 PM

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