Just Shoot Me

Mike Huckabee shoots himself in the foot with a "joke" about Obama ducking a gunman.  Where is Dick Cheney with a duck-hunting invite when we need him?

Comments

[Jane]

Mike Huckabee is an idiot.

[Gmax]

Bye Bye Huckster.

[centralcal]

Actually, Tom, if you check my comments at the "Ok, so what are...." post, you will see that I think Huck shot himself a little higher up the leg than in the foot.

It will get way too much media play and will probably steal the spotlight from McCain's remarks to the NRA. Not a way to go about getting the VP slot, for sure.

[Danube of Thought]

He is, and always has been, a fool. If this will get him out of our lives, it's a small price to pay.

[Sue]

Good grief. And this man came close to be the nominee of our party.

[Cecil Turner]

Reminiscent of another famous meltdown:

I have it from the highest authority that that negro sold his soul to the Devil.

Audience reaction was similarly unimpressed.

[JM Hanes]

Cecil:

I love that movie! As a matter of fact, I think it was the first DVD I ever went out and bought.

[Forbes]

Huckabee was never ready for prime time.

[narciso]

Yes it was stupid and shortsided; typical Huckabee. But let's face facts, Barry has
sided with every enemy, both foreign (Hamas,
the FARC contacts, Ahmadinejad's Quds Force
veterans, the phone banks in Gaza,(which is eerily like a similar Hezbollah scheme in the upcoming "Zohan" film with Adam Sandler. Along with opposition to cops, soldiers (Code Pink)gunowners (Rev.Flueger)
oil workers, mortgage brokers, non Marxist
church and lay people. A little jibe can't be made at his expense.

[Sue]

The Hill is reporting that the audience laughed at Huckabee's joke. They didn't. They laughed at the Huckster claiming the noise was Obama tripping over a chair. His punch line fell on stunned silence. And the look on the Huckster's showed he knew he had stepped in it. I don't understand why news media can't get simple facts straight. Oh wait, yes I can.

[Sue]

And the look on the Huckster's ***face***

[Cavalf]

Obama Chicago luciferians mad at Bush's Isreali mossad, so Huckabee gotta loose the mouth. What's real funny is,like, what if, like, you know, since Obama is Harvard and Kennedy, you know, some guys, you know got even and, you know, Kennedy was an idiot too........The economy tends to go up too............ Yes, they laughed.

Anything on the FARC except for the guy put Obama on his computer before he was shot as part of a deal?

[Danube of Thought]

Welcome, Cavalf. We always like to hear from the Hatter. Say what?

[PapayaSF]

The joke did fall flat, because jokes don't work when the topic is taken too seriously for the audience to be in a spirit of fun about it. (See Max Eastman's classic Enjoyment of Laughter). For obvious reasons, political assassinations are a touchy subject. Huckabee can be funny, but he totally blew that bit of improv.

But what if he'd said, after the noise: "Probably just a Democrat dodging sniper fire"? I think that would have been funnier and far less offensive.

[Neo]

I can only say that, given all the ink that he was 1st on the list for VP, it's good that he screwed up now.

[centralcal]

Amen, Neo. My thoughts exactly.

[Cecil Turner]

The joke did fall flat, because jokes don't work when the topic is taken too seriously for the audience to be in a spirit of fun about it.

Sounded to me like the audience was willing to laugh (he got a bigger chuckle out of the first bit: "that was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair . . ."; but mostly silence on the second sally--with a couple of sporadic laughs), but the part about the gun either wasn't funny or was in poor taste (or, more likely, a bit of both).

[Danube of Thought]

Pardon my going off-topic here.

I'm gonna predict that the CA ballot initiative to amend the state constitution, defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, will lose in November.

The statutory initiative using the same language got 61% in 2000. The last polling (2006) showed 51% opposed to gay marriage, 43% support.

[clarice]

OT:
Charlie scores --and is instalaunched.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/amazons-kindle-draws-the-reader-in/>Kindle

[Danube of Thought]

Teddy K rushed to Mass Gen with stroke symptoms.

[MarkD]

Good, because I'm going to have to hold my nose to vote for McCain.

Huckabee is the embodiment of what I don't like about the Republicans. A tax and spend type who wants to force his morality down people's throats. I don't think he'd add anything to the ticket, but he could help drive the fiscal conservatives away.

[Danube of Thought]

I think Huckabee would drive a lot of people away, and I doubt that McCain would seriously consider him. I, too, am very nearly appalled by some of the positions McCain has staked out, e.g. global warming, but I genuinely fear for the safety of the country if this neophyte poseur were to become president.

[Intes]

Dems called the UN again. It's the Florida vote. They tried to end the electoral college and redistrict after that.

Maybe we should ask dumb questions while they tell us the US is shit again. Dems want to work internationally.................

[Rick Ballard]

DoT,

I think the amendment will pass, perhaps narrowly. I'm not sure it will hold though - the CA Supremes ruling that gays deserve "suspect class" status opens the door to a challenge of the initiative through the Federal Courts.

[Sue]

Has Kennedy died and they just haven't announced it yet? The anchors and pundits on Fox News are speaking of him in the past tense.

[Danube of Thought]

There's no question the challenge will come in the federal courts on federal constitutional grounds. If it does pass, the state SCt's hands will be tied. But I don't think the "suspect class" discussion will necessarily control the outcome.

The consensus seems to be that, even should it pass, it will not apply retroactively to those who get married between now and November. So if the day after the election, a federal challenge is filed, it will undoubtedly be accompanied by a request for a temporary restrainig order and preliminary injunction pending final judgment. Because under the circumstances that will be a request to maintian the status quo, my guess is that it will be granted. At the end of the day, before it is ultimately decided, we're going to have several years' worth of same-sex marriages under the bridge. It has the makings of a real mess.

[qrstuv]

The guy is SUCH a jerk.

[Sue]

Cheap shot by democratic pundit using Kennedy's stroke to bring up McCain's age.

[Porchlight]

This is very sad news re: Kennedy. I agree Sue, the coverage is odd. I hope it's not as bad as it looks.

[Danube of Thought]

One thing I learned from family experience is that there's such a thing as a trans-ischemic event, or TIE, which is sort of a ministroke whose symptoms typically disappear within 24 hours. The bad news is that such events are generally precursors of a major stroke to come, which happened in the case I'm familiar with.

[Sue]

He has been taken to the hospital before and the news coverage hasn't been like this. But the oddest thing to me is the past tense that is being used when discussing him. He was, he used to, he was known. I think he is in such a condition that his senate career is over or he is dead.

Very sad indeed. While I never agreed with him on anything, I always respected him for standing up for what he believed in. His early personal life makes me almost uncharitable at a time like this, but I'm not as cold hearted as the left has been when Cheney is rushed to the hospital or Bush chokes on a pretzel.

[Sue]

Well, once again I don't read tea leaves right. They just announced he is resting comfortably, undergoing a battery of tests, and nothing more will be known for probably another 48 hours.

[centralcal]

Sue, sometimes it is just a stupid reporter/anchor who can't keep the conversation flow going.

I've been watching all morning, and at one point Jamie Colby called Teddy the MATRIARCH of the Kennedy family. She was immediately correctED to say PATRIARCH.

Live TV. Gotta love it.

[Porchlight]

And he isn't even the patriarch, merely the only surviving son of the actual patriarch.

But I am glad to hear his situation seems less serious than feared. I hope it stays that way.

[Particpate]

A stroke is a stroke with permanent damage. If it's not a stroke, it can be lost of things, like a headache.

I think that the Dems knew they were going back to Kennedy with all there stuff, but, if you check, it's really Republicans ten or twenty years before their program came out.

Term limits. It's government service. If you stay there forever and no one else gets to serve, you find they die there. Why would anybody be surprised? Kennedy is the same a Castro. He got into office over his family or government service or something else and never left. Anyone want his job?

I don't think California reflects on Hillary and who cares if Degenerous is getting married? Maybe we should ask FDL and Plame what to do?

Dems want to work internationally and the UN announced the prices of commodities should be lower the day Congress announced they had a veto proof vote on the farm bill. Does anyone really want dems in office except for foreign countries and the UN who will swear dems are the best because of the cash?

[Danube of Thought]

If it's not a stroke, another thing it can be besides a headache is a TIE. No one yet has said whether it was that, or something else, so far as I know. I did hear a report of a "seizure," but no elaboration on that.

[PeterUK]

Kennedy update

[kim]

What I find curious is that Huckabee persisted, despite pausing and awaiting the further laughs which he expected but didn't get, in finishing the lines, as if he'd memorized them, or at least thought of them sometime previously. It was as lame as a wild porker who's tusked himself in pedalous places.
=============================

[Angio]

Genesis was a vessel?
TIA is a stroke without permanent effects.
If it's his receptors, he may have been used by the device, which tends to brake them because a computer doesn't need them.

Huckabee might have heard those words, but that was his speech(like planning things like a job), so he got no laughs(he already did and didn't hear them) and maybe the hearing affected him or someone else.

I'm sure you've got it all figured so I'll stop the jokes. Yes, we should call the UN, they have the TV!!!

[Gca]

Oh ya, which 'US Government' official called the UN on the dem vote thing, like the Florida vote thing?

No one will admit it.

[Topsecretk9]

Angio
I'm going out on a limb...
Is there still a Margolis problem? Or does Margolis still have one?

[M. Simon]

Is it clear now why a lot of Rs don't trust the socons?

Not that most would say something like that, but that his "minister" act pulled the wool over their eyes.

Identity politics is a game for mooks.

First character
Second principles
Third identity

Put identity first and you are screwed.

Top,

My mom is a Margolis. Is there a problem with that?

[Pofarmer]

M. Simon

I disagree.

First Principles
Second Character
Third Identity.

It's conservative principles you should be voting for. If the individual happens to have sterling charachter, great. However, if you have a guy running on charachter(which an awful lot of conservatives are) if he slips up, it's easy to take him out on hypocrisy, especially if he's not particularly adherent to conservatism.

In your formulation, you get someone like-

McCain.

[Danube of Thought]

Pofarmer, please tell us whom you get as a candidate under your formulation.

Then tell us how you think that person would do in November.

[kim]

Of the recent crop, Thompson, and the result would depend upon how successfully MSM manipulated #3.

By Simon's formulation, Romney, and we see how they manipulated #3.
======================

[kim]

And with McCain's character shiny with flaws, and his impetus to the center current on principles, it'll be a tug-a-war over #3.
===============================

[Danube of Thought]

No one can be sure, but I believe strongly that Fred Thompson would lose 40 states this November. I would much rather see him as president than McCain, but first you have to be able to get there. In this devastating environment for Republicans, McCain is the only one with a chance.

And Thompson's conservative principles tend to wilt a bit under scrutiny anyway...

[kim]

True, D; I considered Romney the most able to get us through the next eight years, but despite marvelous presence, and money, his message didn't get out. It, and he, were blocked by the media.

Just pathological. We citizens suffer.
=======================

[MikeS]

Many Republicans claim that McCain is not Conservative enough, but no one on the other side can complain that Obama is not Liberal enough!

[Danube of Thought]

That's for sure. I have serious doubts that many people know what a genuine leftist he is. If this guy is elected, he's going to have a huge congressional majority, and this country could be permanently changed for very much the worse. I expect we'll see some kind of single-payer healthcare system, and once you get that it's impossible to get rid of it. And that's just for starters.

In my gloomier moments--like right now--I understand the feelings of those who say let the Dems have it so the ensuing disaster can be placed squarely on them.

[Sue]

DoT,

I keep thinking the same thing, that we won't recognize our country 8 years from now. But then, in my less gloomier moments, I think about democrats in 2002 who felt the same way I feel right now. The democrats are going to have a congressional majority, but those elected in typically red districts are going to have to answer to their constituents. I am pinning my hopes on the blue dogs, but I am realistic enough to know that is a slim hope.

[kim]

The problem, D, is that the blame won't be squarely placed. It'll be the Rethuglicans fault, you know the 'bitterness'.
===================

[MikeS]

I think Danube is right that very few people realize how radically liberal Obama is.

[boris]

let the Dems have it so the ensuing disaster can be placed squarely on them

When Carter led to Reagan or when BJ led to Gingrich there was a Reagan or a Gingrich able to take advantage of the situation.

Seems risky to depend on that always happening.

[Mikey NTH]

Seems risky to depend on that always happening.

Seems strange to pull for a disaster now in order to make political hay out of it later.

[jimmyk]

I disagree.

First Principles
Second Character
Third Identity.

I'm not sure you can have principles without character. Otherwise you have (to reuse the quote I used a few threads ago) Groucho Marx's line:

"These are my principles, and if you don't like them, well,...I have others."

[boris]

Then again if the first principle isn't prudence (or equivalent) not sure I'm interested in what they are.

There are plenty of advocates for good sounding principles who would rather fail on principle than succeed on wisdom.

[Jane]

Boy you guys are a lot more generous than the people in MA are about Kennedy.

I keep hearing: "he murdered a woman".

[sbw]

Character helps discern principles worth having. Principles give backbone to character. Identity worth having follows from the other two.

A biographer of Washington once said that character is a role you play until you grow into the part. Growing up in northern Virginia as young Washington did, honor -- how others saw you -- was important.

[Danube of Thought]

"Seems strange to pull for a disaster now in order to make political hay out of it later."

Please don't misunderstand me. I say the Dems may as well take it all only because I think the disaster is coming in any event, and that things are going to continue to get progressively worse and worse, and I have no desire to see all of this blamed on the Republican party.

[JM Hanes]

Danube:

If the Dems do take it all, I don't think the chances of Republicans escaping blame will actually improve much.

[Pofarmer]

If the Dems do take it all, I don't think the chances of Republicans escaping blame will actually improve much.

Now there's a sad but true statement.