Former Arkansas governor and potential 2016 GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday that the Obamas are “great parents,” but he stands by his concern about the “cultural divide” in which the Obama girls are allowed to listen to Beyonce’s music.
In an interview about his new book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy, Huckabee told People magazine that he doesn’t understand how the Obamas allow Malia, 16, and Sasha, 13, to be fans of the songstress and White House regular.
“I don’t understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything – how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school and making sure they’re kind of sheltered and shielded from so many things – and yet they don’t see anything that might not be suitable for either a preteen or a teen in some of the lyrical content and choreography of Beyoncé, who has sort of a regular key to the door,” Huckabee told the magazine.
Today, Huckabee told ABC’s This Week that the book passage talking about Beyonce is written “in the context of first of all saying Beyonce is a wonderful talent.”
“My point is, she doesn’t have to do some of the things that she does in the lyrics, because it’s not necessary. She has nothing to make up for. She’s an amazing talent,” he said. “My point was, even in speaking about the Obamas — and I said about them in the book, they’re great parents. But it was President Obama in an interview with Glamour who said that some of the lyrics he won’t listen to with his daughters because it embarrasses him.”
“Well, here’s my point, if it embarrasses you then why would you possibly think it’s wholesome for your children to put it into their heads?”
Huckabee stressed “that’s the point.”
“If you’re very concerned about what happens with your children, and the Obamas are. They’re great parents. They’re careful about making sure their kids get a lot of vegetables and eat right. That’s terrific. But what you put in your brain is also important as well as what you put into your body and that was my point based on what the president, himself, said,” the governor continued. “So, I think if people read the chapter they see that it’s about this cultural divide, the disconnect between the three bubbles of New York, D.C. and Hollywood versus the land of God, guns, grits and gravy, that’s where the title comes from.”
Huckabee said he plans to announce his presidential intentions “later in the spring.”
“The fact that I left the Fox gig, which was a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for me, to leave that, I didn’t do it just because I was tired of going to New York every week,” he said, adding that if he runs this time he’ll “raise more money, for one thing.”
“That was the big hurdle for us back in 2008. A lot of people didn’t take the campaign that seriously until we were winning states and winning primaries. I literally got by on a dime to the dollar of both John McCain and Mitt Romney,” Huckabee said. “So in some ways, we were a very green campaign. We got more miles per gallon than anybody else. But you do have to have a lot of money to be able to not only push your own campaign, but you have to be able to defend your record against all these crazy attacks that will come against you.”
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