More Mush From the Huck
This morning on Fox News Sunday, Mike Huckabee sucked up to John McCain while bashing Mitt Romney. Asked to comment on the dispute between McCain and Romney as to whether Romney had called for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, Huckabee sided squarely with McCain:
“Dishonest? I’ve never seen John McCain say something that is just blatantly untrue,” Huckabee said. Huckabee later praised McCain, saying “we have a civil approach to presidential process. Neither of us has sought the office by cracking the kneecaps of the other.”But then he figuratively cracked the kneecaps of Romney by questioning the former governor’s veracity.
“There are published reports that I’ve seen in which Mitt Romney did in fact talk about support for – not a public timetable – but a secret timetable that would be held by administration officials and members of Congress,” Huckabee said.
As Paul noted here, McCain's assertion that Romney advocated a timetable is misleading at best. Whereas McCain can legitimately claim to have been more steadfast on Iraq than Romney (or just about anyone else), Huckabee can't.
Huckabee also attacked Romney on the economy, saying that he "wasn't impressed" by Romney's experience in the private sector. From what we have learned about Huckabee, I have no trouble believing that statement. Huckabee claims prescience in foreseeing the market turmoil of the last couple of weeks:
“When Mitt Romney and the other Republicans a few months ago in Dearborn, Michigan, at the debate were talking about how great the economy was, I was jeered and sneered, but I was the one saying it may not be that great,” Huckabee said.“I was understanding that, seeing it, predicting it. People were laughing at me then; now they have to admit that I was right.”
McCain has said that he'd like to find a Vice-Presidential candidate who understands economics better than he does. Maybe Huckabee thinks he fits that description.
PAUL adds: Since the early days of the campaign, McCain has shown disdain for Romney while having nothing but nice things to say about Huckabee. I assumed that this was mostly because McCain realized that Romney is a serious rival and Huckabee isn't. Then, again, McCain may just be a poor judge of character. After all, Lindsey Graham is his side-kick.
McCain's defender would probably say that their man was turned off by Romney's shifts of positions on a number of important issues. Fair enough. But Huckabee hasn't exactly been a model of steadfastness either. His positions on taxes and immigration, for example, are hard to reconcile with his policies as governor. He's also been all over the map on foreign policy -- an odd mixture of a Carterite "blame America first" tendencies and hard-line Reaganism. And, where Romney admits most of his shifts in position, Huckabee tries to cover them up with charm and evasion.
Huckabee, in short, is a smooth talker, not straight talker. But then, as I'll try to show in my next post, McCain isn't scoring very well in the straight talk category lately either.
SCOTT adds: Here's more mush from the Huck on the surge.
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