comMITTed to Romney!

Exclusive: Huckabee’s Innocent Question? Not Quite.

Gotta love the Internet. While I was browsing through some old coverage of the Values Voters Summit I ran across a clip that looked strangely familiar. I did a little bit of digging and BINGO, it turns out that Huckabee’s claim that he just tossed out a completely impromptu question “rooted in genuine ignorance” of Mormons to the New York Times (no pre-meditation here folks) becomes a bit hard to believe. Judge for yourself – as far as I know this is a world exclusive.

How many times have we seen in politics where the cover-up is worse than the crime? It seems that when confronted with a problem Huckabee has a pattern of convoluted explanations, misinformation, and downright deception in his attempt to explain away the issue. For example:

ISSUE: In 1992 Huckabee made it known that he FAVORED isolating AIDS patients and OPPOSED increased funding for AIDS research. In defending his position Huckabee stated recently that, “In 1992 we weren’t clear how AIDS was transmitted.”

OOPS: In 1984 Ryan White was diagnosed with AIDS and garnered national media attention for the issue. By 1988 the CDC, the NIH, and Surgeon General C. Edward Coop had made clear public policy statements and even sent information to every household explaining that you could not contract AIDS from “kissing, tears, sweat, or saliva.”

ISSUE: Huckabee said that his 1033 clemencies in 10 years “was in line with other governors who have served the state.”

OOPS: Bill Clinton, Frank White and Tucker granted 507 clemencies in the 17 1/2 years they served as governor.

ISSUE: Huckabee said he had proposed to make children of illegal aliens eligible for Arkansas scholarships if they “had been in our schools their entire school life.”

OOPS: Actually, the proposal required only three years in Arkansas schools.

ISSUE: When confronted with a YouTube video in which he called for tax increases as Arkansas Governor he said that the tax hikes were in response to “a supreme court order that we had to fund education at a higher level.”

OOPS: Fox news investigated and found that not to be true. In fact the tax hikes were to cover a general revenue shortfall as a result of increased state spending.

ISSUE: On numerous occasions in debate and on the stump Governor Huckabee cites as justification for raising the gas and fuel tax the supposed fact that 80% of Arkansans voted to support it.

OOPS: On April 1, 1999 Huckabee signed the gas and fuel tax hikes into law. The tax hikes began taking effect that day. On June 15, 1999 (some two and a half months later) 80% of Arkansas voters approved a bond issue, which DID NOT include the gas tax increases.

ISSUE: Governor Huckabee’s son, David, was involved in the hanging, cutting of the throat, and stoning to death of a stray dog while employed as a counselor at a scout camp. He was fired from the camp because of the incident.

OOPS: John Baily, who was the Director of the Arkansas state police (the top law enforcement job in Arkansas) said that he was pressured by Governor Huckabee’s Chief of Staff and then the Governor’s family lawyer to write a letter to the prosecutor saying that the state police would not investigate the incident, but he refused. Baily claims that he was later fired because Huckabee said, “I’ve lost confidence in your ability to do your job.” One reason cited was “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem.”

OOPS: The head of the Arkansas FBI office said at the time that without question Huckabee was interfering with a state investigation.

ISSUE: Huckabee claimed that his son was being unfairly singled out because such animal cruelty cases were not regularly prosecuted. This argument appeared in an article in the Arkansas Gazette on April 27, 2007 (reporting on a separate incident in which David Huckabee was stopped for taking a gun through airport security).

OOPS: Prosecuting Attorney Tim Williamson of Mena, Arkansas said cruelty to animals is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. “We regularly charge cruelty to animals. That’s kind of my pet peeve,” he said.

ISSUE: Governor Huckabee was asked if he had pressured the parole board to release Dumond. Governor Huckabee: “No. I did not. Let me categorically say that I did not. And it’s really interesting, if people want to really look into that record.”

OOPS: According to Murray Waas’ prize-winning expose of Huckabee’s clemency record entitled “Special handling: How the Huckabee administration worked to free rapist Wayne Dumond” new sources, including an advisor to Gov. Mike Huckabee, have told the Arkansas Times that Huckabee and a senior member of his staff exerted behind-the-scenes influence to bring about the parole of rapist Wayne Dumond, who Missouri authorities say raped and killed a woman there shortly after his parole.

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