Reagan or Carter? Part Two
It turns out that Mike Huckabee's lame discussion of foreign policy with Don Imus was a repeat performance. Huckabee previously appeared with Imus on October 26, 2006. At that time, he embraced James Baker's recommendations for dealing with the situation in Iraq, and threw in his "Holiday Inn Express" joke. Baker, it will be recalled, recommended large scale troop reductions, reliance on negotiations with Iran, and pushing Israel to make concessions.
So, while Huckabee's jokes haven't evolved, his thinking about Iraq has. He's progressed from James Baker (have Iran bail us out) to Colin Powell (we broke it, we own it). But he's still nowhere near John McCain (let's defeat our enemies).
NOTE: Here's the relevant link to the Imus show blog that I could not get to work when I first did this post. The text is as follows:
October 18th, 2006Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee was a guest today. He’s been Governor for 10 1/2 years. It looks like he is throwing his hat in the ring as a Presidential candidate. Mr. Huckabee touts himself as a moderate, neither left or right. He said Governors historically have a better chance than Senators to be President. Because people understand Governors do things while Senators talk about doing things.
On the Iraq war Huckabee strongly supports the efforts of James Baker III.
Imus asked a direct question, what would you do now in Iraq if you were President? Huckabee danced around for a couple of minutes and never answered. In response to a question, knowing what you know now would you support the Iraq war? Again he danced and wouldn’t answer it. He admitted he knew little about foreign policy. But in his words, “I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.” In a rare moment of seriousness Imus said, “I’m not sure I understand that answer, but you know when I hear Chris and Tim do it they don’t get an answer either.”
UPDATE: This post by Jim Geraghty sheds further light on Huckabee's foreign policy views and in particular his views about Iran. In an address to the Council on Foreign Relations this September, Huckabee said:
We haven’t had diplomatic relations with Iran in almost thirty years, my whole adult life. A lot of good it’s done us! Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent or a sibling or a friend, it’s impossible to accomplish anything, impossible to resolve differences and move the relationship forward. The same is true for countries.
Obviously, the man's being doing some deep thinking at the Holiday Inn Express.
