November 9th, 2009:

via  Mike Huckabee says he’s ‘very serious’ – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com

Huckabee is unceasingly pleasant and mild, even in relating his grievances. The same sense of humor is there, too. But so are an obvious frustration and a barely concealed bitterness, as well as the underlying question of whether Huckabee really wants to go through with this again or, instead, succumb fully to the showbiz side that he began polishing as a teenage disc jockey in Hope, Ark.

Gallup’s survey of Republicans found that 71 percent would consider voting for him, more than for Palin, Romney or others. The same survey found that he’s the only Republican whom even 50 percent of Americans say they think is qualified to be president.

Chuck Norris and Mike Huckabee on the campaign trail

It’s a bizarre fact that he and President Clinton are from the same small town in Arkansas. Yet, everyone knows that is where the similarities end. Huckabee does have ten years gubernatorial experience without much controversy, but the problem with Huckabee is that likes to go out on a limb, politically. Here’s what I mean.

If you go to FOX Entertainment’s Huckabee page today, there is a rant above the fold by Huckabee complaining, whining rather, about a perceived problem with people hating the American flag. Even at first glance this has “straw man” written all over it. Here’s the lead-in quote: “If the American flag offends people in America, they should take the next flight to where they fly a flag they like better.” Is this a real issue?

The rant about flag haters begins with a short anecdotal tale of a man fired by Home Depot for wearing a button that says “One Nation, Under God” set on a background of the American flag. It is true. The man was fired for wearing the button. But the man, Trevor Keezor, was not fired for what the button said, but for violating Home Depot’s dress code. There are to be no unapproved buttons worn in Home Depot no matter what the message on the button is.

A Home Depot spokesman said Keezer was fired because he violated the company’s dress code.

“This associate chose to wear a button that expressed his religious beliefs. The issue is not whether or not we agree with the message on the button,” Craig Fishel said. “That’s not our place to say, which is exactly why we have a blanket policy, which is long-standing and well-communicated to our associates, that only company-provided pins and badges can be worn on our aprons.”

Huckabee has attempted to make an issue out of something that is so easily debunked even I can do it. What everyone should notice right away is that the statement on the button that the man wore to Home Depot was not religious in nature. Rather, it was an attempt at a political statement in support of yet another non-issue. It is about an issue that cries out that somehow, somewhere, in this country there is this big hullabaloo about changing the pledge of allegiance that, in reality, no-one is complaining about, doesn’t care about, and just flatly doesn’t exist.

This is where Huckabee slides further out onto that limb. He believes that the beating the dead-horse non-issue of “hating” the flag will somehow earn him political capital with the right wing base. It might earn some, but it is nowhere near the tidal wave he needs to overcome his frumpy persona and plastic ideals. (His major economic message during the campaign in 2008 was to tout a flat tax idea borrowed from Americans For Fair Taxation which, according to the CBO and most experts, won’t work and is just a huge give-away to the rich.) Huckabee must have went hunting for a cause and ran into the flat tax and, since nobody was talking about it, he decided that this bad idea was his ticket to the top. Stupid.

And what is up with his infatuation with Chuck Norris?