Fox News Catches Huckabee on His Pakistani Immigration Mumbo Jumbo
Huckabee must think that the American People, and with it the American Press are absolute idiots.
First off check out —>this post from earlier.
Continuing on this discussion, Fox News did some research on “The Huck’s” so called “facts”, and here is what they found (I’ve also included a photo of the chart mentioned in the post for visualization purposes).
Huckabee warned an Iowa crowd that 660 Pakistanis have come into the country illegally in the past year because of insecure borders. It was a new angle among the candidates reacting on the trail to the assassination Thursday of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
He also said: “We have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all of the other nationalities except those immediately south of the border. … In light of what’s happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause.”
But his Pakistan statements don’t jibe with the data. Pressed by reporters where he got his figure, Huckabee initially said: “Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing and I believe they are CIA and or immigration numbers.”
Later, in a conference call with reporters, he identified the figure as coming from the Department of Homeland Security and news articles, including a March 2006 piece in The Denver Post.
Only that article said 660 Pakistanis entered the United States illegally between fiscal 2002 and 2005 – not just in one year. And Homeland Security figures for 2006 show that many more illegal immigrants came from India, Korea, China, the Philippines and Vietnam than Pakistan, which didn’t even make the chart.
See On The Chart How Pakistan Isn’t Even Listed?
Meanwhile, Huckabee on MSNBC talked about Pakistan’s “eastern borders near Afghanistan,” even though that border is on Pakistan’s western end.
And he suffered another gaffe Thursday when he said it’s too early to say whether martial law should “continue” in Pakistan, even though martial law was lifted two weeks ago.
Huckabee’s campaign later offered a statement saying “martial law in Pakistan, as a practical matter, should not be viewed as having been completely lifted until the restrictions imposed during that period on the press and judges are removed.”
Such comments could play into the hands of critics who say Huckabee’s light on foreign policy experience. Since recently admitting to reporters that he hadn’t heard about a major report on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Huckabee has sought to fight that accusation.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
It is only fair that we need to ask Huckabee why he gets the data like he did — is it because of his imbecilic staff, or is it because he did not get Ivy League education?
December 28th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Wow, that’s really important. Say, exactly how many Pakistanis-who-are-potentially-terrorists can dance on the head of a pin?
P.S. I’m not a Huck supporter, just an opponent of those who attempt to downplay terrorst infiltration.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:13 am
So Huckabee made a mistake. His point is still valid that we need to keep Pakistani terrorists out of America. We can start by protecting the borders.
By the way, how many “flip-flops” is Romney up to now? Romney = phony
December 29th, 2007 at 12:20 am
A bit off topic question here, didn’t know how to contact you to ask - are stations allowed to air Law and Order episodes with Thompson?
December 29th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Huckabee did more than make a mistake. He’s made several in the last two days on this topic alone. And this last mistake is especially interesting in that it involved making up or reporting numbers that are bogus.
So, Clete, this goes beyond a single mistake. It’s a trend of bad awareness, avoidance of proper fact-checking, and absence of integrity in delivering his message.
If you support Huckabee, you can’t possibly enjoy seeing him use this Pakistani story as a topic that relates to illegal immigration. He’s trying to run from one gaffe, but only creates a bigger one for himself. He’s gone from bad to absurd.
December 29th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Cletus…it isn’t just one mistake, it’s several mistakes starting with his criticism of the Bush administration, his apology for the assassination of Bhuto yesterday, he said Bolton was one of his advisors and then Bolten comes out and says he isn’t. You have Condi Rice saying his statement is ludicrous along with one of his professed advisors (Gaffney said as much in an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s show) along with other experts on foreign policy. You add in all the gaffes he had today…and along with that you had his own people telling a CNN reporter that he has zero credentials in foreign policy….uh duh! You can bad mouth Mitt and say he doesn’t as well…but he has made trips to Israel and spoke to a conference there, is friends with former Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu…and had to consult with world leaders on security for the Olympic games in a post 9/11 world, and refused to allow state funds for security of the former Iranian prime minister Khatami. And if you’ve seen how he’s reacted to the questions yesterday…he’s been quite good. The answer is simple people…..Iowa…it’s time to wake up….Huckster isn’t going to cut it.
December 29th, 2007 at 7:04 am
The American press ARE idiots.