Governor Mike Huckabee Sings the Praises of Oliver Stone
Governor Mick Huckabee, now a TV and radio talk-show host, seems to be a nice guy. He is kind to everyone and seemingly wants everyone to like him. Unlike other media hosts, he regularly features as guests those with whom conservatives disagree. When The Iron Lady came out in 2011, Huckabee invited on actress Meryl Streep to discuss her performance of Margaret Thatcher. I recall her nervousness as she clearly feared being the guest of a well-known social conservative with whom she had profound disagreements. The governor quickly put her at ease, and showed that he truly wanted to make her welcome.
Sometimes this works. But yesterday, Huckabee revealed the dangers of such a stance. He had as guests on his radio program none other than Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, there to give their TV series, The Untold History of the United States, more publicity and attention. Listen to the interview, and you will find one of the most disgraceful interviews by a conservative that you will ever hear.
You might expect that Huckabee (or his staff) would have done some homework and, if he chose to have these two advocates of what Roger L. Simon rightfully calls “Stalin porn” on his program, asked them challenging questions. If so, you will be waiting a long, long time. Instead of asking them any tough questions at all, Huckabee allowed them to use their assigned time to spout leftist propaganda without any objection or disagreement. Indeed, at one point, historian Kuznick praised Joseph Stalin and chastised the United States during World War II for not doing Stalin’s bidding, arguing that the U.S. could have come to their aid earlier and not refused a second front in Europe when Stalin wanted it. After all, Kuznick said, Stalin was “anti-fascist” when no other powers were.
Clearly, Kuznick does not realize that in fact Stalin was preparing his alliance with the Nazis during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact way before it was announced, and the nature of his anti-fascism was spurious to the core. Indeed, as Foreign Minister Molotov had said in a famous statement, “fascism is a matter of taste.” The NKVD gave advice and aid to the Gestapo, among other things, and the two totalitarian leaders easily accommodated their ideological differences to work together against the West.
Did Huckabee challenge this statement? Not once. Nor did he object when the two repeated their argument about the unnecessary A-bombs dropped on Japan and the United States’ true purpose as a permanent militaristic power based on hegemonic domination of the world on behalf of American corporations.
Indeed, Huckabee went on to agree with them when he argued that Republicans were captives of Wall Street interests, and praised the two for revealing the evils of the American system to viewers of the series. I happen to agree with those who argue that conservatives have foolishly ignored the concerns of the middle class and working class and have failed to address their fears with alternative programs that address their just concerns. But making this point is quite a different one than that the governor made, as you can hear for yourself.
Huckabee ended the program by asking the two what is the main thing they want viewers to get out of their series. The answer, as you might predict, was that the true picture of the United States as the world’s villain become plain and comprehensible. In passing, Huckabee did mention Michael Moynihan’s take-down of their series on The Daily Beast, but he did not let listeners hear anything of what he wrote, nor ask them to defend themselves against Moynihan’s specific examples of deceit on the part of Stone and Kuznick. His only point was to say that there was one negative review. (Clearly, the governor does not read The Weekly Standard, where he would have found my comprehensive critique.)
So I must ask: Why does a well-known conservative and former presidential candidate, who supposedly knows something about foreign policy, give over his air time to two far leftist propagandists, and never argue with them? Why does he, in fact, seem to praise the two for their efforts, and indeed go on to agree with them for being anti-capitalist?
With conservatives active in the culture using their position to further pollute the culture and allow those who would destroy our country the time to reach a wide audience, who needs MSNBC when some of us can do their job on our outlets? Would PJ Media, for example, ask Stone and Kuznick to write a major piece for us? Of course not, they have already done this on The Huffington Post, where one would expect to find them.
Recently, I argued that before anything else, we have to change the culture, and make inroads that will help the public have an alternative outlook other than what they get from NPR, the New York Times, The Nation magazine, and the mainstream media as a whole. All of these outlets can be counted on to engage in hype for Stone’s TV series. So why oh why is Mike Huckabee joining them?
*****
Cross-posted from Ron Radosh’s Blog
Previously at PJ Lifestyle from Ron Radosh:
It’s the Culture, Stupid: Facing the Long Road Ahead
Why Oliver Stone Will Not Be a Happy Man this Weekend
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Huckabee is a ratings whore now, and will kowtow to Leftwingers in order to sway them to come on his program.
He is also what I call a Catholic-style Government Paternalist (even though he is not a Catholic, this is pervasive in Catholic Christian polities so is described as such)…a Christian Socialist.
Huckabee is what he is. Which is why I supported Fred Thompson in the 2008 primaries.
Huckabee is just damaged goods.
And Oliver Stone, historical military and political genius, is currently carried on the United States Military Table of Organizations as:
Hole, ass (1) ea.
Spoken thus
“yeah, I know that guy…and lemme tell ya, he is a HOLE COMMA ASS ONE EACH”
Only those of Mr Stones caliber, who go so far above beyond the call of treason, are awarded such emphatic title of ranking.
For instance, Bill Clinton, though Commander in Chief, was a mere A**hole first class.
Mike Huckabee and his allies on the religious right are problematic and troublesome. I prefer them to raging leftists, but not by much. As often as not, the Huckabees, Akins, Murdocks and Santorums have as much trouble with the original intent of America as do people like Oliver Stone, Howard Zinn, and the Good Will Hunting Bobbsey Twins.
Huckabee’s open contempt for libertarianism, Akin’s and Murdock’s stupid remarks, and Santorum’s awful reaction to JFK’s religion and politics speech make me leery of them.
Actually it was devout Christians (aka the Christian Right) who wrote the Constitution and ratified it.
Akin nor Mourdock nor Santorum are Christian Socialists….but rather Classically Liberal Christians….aka the ideological inheritors of the heart and soul of the US Constitution.
This government was set up in accordance with Protestant Christian philosophical and metaphysical foundations. As opposed to Islamic or Hindu or Toaist or Buddhist or libertarian or Marxist metaphysical and philosophical foundations.
Except those same devout Christians who wrote and ratified the Constitution also wrote and ratified amendments to State constitutions to remove forced religious participation and support and other requirements.
Those same devout Christians accepted the common law of the time that permitted abortion before “quickening”.
Those same devout Christians regularly dealt with “dissident” Christians and non-Christians without demanding submission to moral issues exclusive to their form of Christianity.
Santorum in particular, insisting that the right to pursue happiness only means happiness as defined by his faith are far from the inheritors of that tradition.
Dearest Sam, There is not a single mainstream religious thinker who is advocating for forced adherence to Christianity. And your statement about Santorum “insisting that the right to pursue happiness only means happiness as defined by his faith” is just plain drivel. However, I am glad you brought up “quickening.” Science has come a long way since the days of Cooke and Blackstone and has made the concept of “quickening” a quaint relic. But keep on clinging.
Offend nobody, convince nobody, rack in the ratings, have a nice day!
Ding,ding,ding….We have a winner!
Mike Huckabee is not very knowledgeable on history, even simple history like Stalin’s alliance with Hitler and the partition of Poland. Huckabee’s ignorance looks close to being stupidity.
For starters, Huckabee isn’t all that bright. Take his promo line: “He’s conservative, but not mad [at anyone] about it.” It seems they recently deleted the “at anyone,” but either way it makes no sense grammatically.
Huck’s whole shtick is that he’s more reasonable and civilized than other conservatives on the radio. His “more conversation, less confrontation” style is a way of eliciting other people’s views, but at some point those views need to be confronted in the hardball world of politics and they need to be refuted in the culture. Huck isn’t helping much in that regard, and he’s too naive to realize how urgently important it is to do that.
Michael Medved does a very good job of having left-leaning guests on his show without obscuring or abjuring his own conservative positions.
I’m replying to your comment partly because I can’t resist that palindromic time signature it has…
Groupie, starf***er, whatever. Arkansas is a fer piece from the lights of Broadway. Evidently most governors of Arkansas are quite the actor. And Huckabee is a musician to boot.
Stalin was Hitler’s first ally. He joined in Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Mussolini didn’t enter the war until France was about to fall. Japan didn’t attack Britain until December 1941.
Could anyone have followed Clinton as Governor of Arkansas without having some experience with the Dark Side? Would the Democrats have had anything to hold over him to ensure his tractability?
OK, it’s not Illinois politics, but…
There is such a thing as being too “NICE,” which merges into stupidity, which I think is the case with Huckabee, who also likes being “NICE” to criminals. Amazingly, he’s a minister but can’t seem to acknowledge such a thing as evil. BLAH!
Huckabee had Bill Maher on his show and Maher was promoting his agnostic views and his movie “Religulous”. Maher plainly said there is no God and Huckabee a so-called minister did not utter a hint of a rebuttal. He is truly a professional “nice guy” with the backbone of a shrimp. Put him in your file under “Useful Idiot”.
I’m British, so I apologize for my ignorance in these matters (and not for anything else, at the moment), but I have to know: does a US Governor retain the title for the rest of his or her life? I get the impression that Presidents get to swig some eternal elixir, so that even Carter is still “President Carter”, but is, for instance, Governor Huckabee “Governor Huckabee” ad infinitum, regardless of what he does, or how he performs, from now?
Irritatingly, yes. In America, “Mr.” should be enough of an honorific for any man.
Actually, most titles tend to be retained, if you serve in most capacities. The honorific “colonel,” for instance, if you retired at that rank. “Governor” is proper, as is “Mister.” Neither would be considered disrespectful… although I seem to remember a liberal grilling a military man, making much ado about nothing when he used something along the line of “ms.”
Doctor is kind of an iffy one; I have noticed a lot of folks with doctorates (especially if they are actually working medical doctors) who get a bit perturbed if you use Mister or Miss or whatever… the infamous quote being “I worked hard to earn the title.” I generally indulge those folks, especially as I don’t know a clear rule.
I believe that many of these rules hold sway in British society, as well, though of course they have lots of hereditary titles, as well…
The real issue here is respectable mainline conservatives at PJM have to defend the Federal Reserve and globalism to the death. Oliver Stone whatever his flaws has a son who’s done some good work exposing what FEMA’s been up to in the U.S. and other bits of nastyness that regular government worshipping Right wingers (who never seem to think it’ll be there young daughters getting groped by the TSA or their house having a Pentagon-funded drone flying over it) don’t want to discuss.
This along with PJM turning into a regular j-had against Ron Paul and his followers leading up to the Iowa caucuses with so many paid anti-Paul drones it was laughable is why I stopped reading anyone except for Wretchard and Spengler. At least Spengler had the stones to admit his hopeless personal bias against Paul. The rest hid behind bogus claims about racist newsletters written by Lew Rockwell like Ace of Spades. Mainline ‘conservatives’ are going to get what they deserve good and hard in an Obama second term for dismissing WND, Corsi et al as ‘nut jobs’ and ‘birthers’.
what would you expect from the Bush, Boehner, Romney et al RINO Whigs?
remember that this piece of garbage is responsible for pardoning a murderer who moved from Arkansas to WA State to murder 4 police officers in Tacoma.
why is this pretender even on TV? or having anything to say that decent people would listen to? he tries to sound reasonable and reason with enemies who hate his and our guts. anyone say useful idiot?
Time and time again we are seeing the *republicans* do their part to help the ratbasturd dems move *forward* with their destruction of our lives.
Hellooooooooooo…he’s not a conservative! (Except on a handful of social issues and only “conservative” on them for as long as he thinks having those positions will boost his own career.) Ratings whore is another apt label for him. The only surprise about any of this is that people like Ron Radosh are still apparently surprised to find this out. Jeez, live in a cave or under a rock for the last decade or 3?
This should come as no surprise. Huckabee is fool whose primary goal is self-promotion. Sucking up to lefties helps with the self promotion. O’Reilly does this on occasion, too.
Also, except for his social conservatism Huckabee is basically a big government statist. He just wants the state to do some things a little different than social liberals do.
“Recently, I argued that before anything else, we have to change the culture, and make inroads that will help the public have an alternative outlook other than what they get from NPR, the New York Times, The Nation magazine, and the mainstream media as a whole”
Professor Radosh, as David Frum pointed out you already have your “conservative entertainment complex” of hundreds of radio programs, blogs, Fox, etc. Mission accomplished in creating an alternative reality for conservative America, and how did that work out for you guys in the last election? If you tell the “mainstream as a whole” to go to hell you can’t be surprised that they don’t drink from your water hole. And so long as your fellow conservatives still rub shoulders with birthers and Alex Jones types, you can’t complain that people like Stone and Kuznick get their say too.
Is that man just a complete idiot, or a fool? I sure am glad he didn’t run for president this time around.
“So I must ask: Why does a well-known conservative…” Your first mistake is thinking Huckabee is a conservative. Huckabee is for Huckabee, no one else.
There’s a reason he’s called “The Huckster” and I think most of you have seen it…
One more reason the party might as well go the wau of the whigs, as far as im concerned,