On NBC’s “Meet the Press†Sunday, host Tim Russert had three “gotcha†moments in interviewing Mike Huckabee about his seeming flip-flops on a federal smoking ban, the Cuban trade embargo and anti-tax pledges.
Huckabee, who has said both that he would sign a national smoking ban and that he prefers that states and communities decide the issue, told Russert he would sign a federal law “if it were about a clean air workplace, not about banning smoking. Because the point is . . . that you’re not telling an individual what he or she can’t do, you’re saying what you cannot do is to infringe upon the right of another to have clean air.â€
After “working to lift the failed embargo†as Arkansas governor to help that state’s rice producers, he switched sides, he acknowledged to Russert. “The more I became familiar with the oppression of Cuba, and as I visited with many of the Cuban-American leaders in Florida, I realized that my position was, frankly, rather shortsighted, and it was based on my rather local agricultural concerns rather than the more important concerns of Cuba’s oppressive regime. So I had to recognize that the embargo did have an important effect and should be kept.â€
On why he signed an anti-tax pledge, just 33 days after telling Russert last year that he wouldn’t, Huckabee said: “The reason I ended up signing the pledge, after I met with Grover Norquist for Americans for Tax Reform, realized that what I was signing was to say that we would not raise marginal tax rates.â€
He added: “I realized that my position had to mature in each of these areas.†Mature or flip-flop?
35 Comments
It appears that Huckabee has the ability to adapt to various positions. Admitting that he was wrong on some issues, adapting and then implementing the changes in accordance to study.
I would think that is better than sticking to a policy by political absorption.
“I would think that is better than sticking to a policy by political absorption.”
So you agree then that GWB was wrong
Make up your mind — your flip flopping ….
Can a person ever know enough to have a “feet in concrete” position of every issue.
There is a word for someone who thinks they know all there is to know about every issue.
Fool.
Heh
I heard most of that interview.
Ol’ Hickabee was like a frog on a hot rock. Jumping here, then there.
But wait a minute.
It’s Rhonda here to remind us?
Ol’ “check out my right wing!” Rhonda?
Huh. Guess she is getting in with the whole get behind McCain thing?
Hmm, I guess its better to engage your brain on an issue completely before engaging your mouth.
“Admitting that he was wrong on some issues, adapting and then implementing the changes in accordance to study”
Which, if done by Kerry or Clinton, is called a flip flop by the right.
The funny thing with both Huckabee and Romney is that many of the policies they used as governors were things that a moderate could support. As they have ‘run to the right’ they have lost that middle area of support and McCain has skillfully exploited that.
You want a flip-flop?
I’ll show ya a flip-flop!
http://tinyurl.com/ysclja
It’s a flip-flop if a change of opinion is by a member of the Democratic Party.
If a Republican realizes something new, matures, gains new insight that is a good thing.
Or, maybe we could all realize the name of the game is politics and the need to say / think what will get votes is paramount!
Probably not.
The reality is – people will conclude he is mature or he flip-flopped based on how they FEEL about Huckabee. People that trust him will believe that he is genuine. People that do not trust him will automatically surmise that he flip-flopped. The article itself proves where the writer comes from. She comes from the vantage point that Huckabee flip-flopped because she chooses to question his motivation. So the question of whether Huckabee is mature or flip-flopped on this issue has nothing to do with the TRUTH behind whether it is maturity or flip-flopping. It has more to do with FEELINGS and LACK OF TRUST – and JUDGMENT OF HEART than anything else.
When I feel the same about Romney, I always have to check my heart as well because at the end of the day, I know that I cannot know his heart. We can only judge based on what the person does from that point forward.
However, I HIGHLY doubt that Huckabee ever does anything for political expediency since he has been fighting an uphill battle from day one. If anything, I have great respect for the fact that he doesn’t cower when everyone else would probably have been discouraged and packed up their bags and quit. Actually, I guess everyone has – Huckabee, McCain and Paul. Three tenacious people. Who are not willing to give in or give up even when odds seemed stacked against them.
Supposed frontrunners fell to the side.
Five tenacious pitbulls. Ya forgot the Clinton chick and BO1kinobi
“Phoebe” posits –
“…I HIGHLY doubt that Huckabee ever does anything for political expediency…”
Uh-huh.
The federal smoking ban was an odd hypothetical, not really a flip-flop. And the tax thing probably doesn’t qualify in light of the Huckster’s promotion of the so-called “Fair Tax.”
Ah, but the Cuban embargo switch was pure pandering to the Cuban-crazy vote in Florida.
The only-est reason for America’s continued Cuban embargo is the manic obsession of ex-Batistaismos who think Fidel Castro somehow suffers because we “isolate” him. Fact is, the only way Russia and China abandoned communism was introducing capitlist institutions such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, and KFC into their economies. Embargoing American capitalist investment in Cuba gave — and continues to give — Fidel a Raison d’être for his “revolution.”
As governor of America’s largest rice-producing state, looking at a huge rice-importer, the Huckster’s efforts to open up a new market made economic and political sense. He abandoned economic sense for political expediency when he campaigned in Florida.
Reg…dunno that I can agree with you on the idea of being flexible. He changed his mind on taxes after talking to one special interest group? Does that mean he will change his mind if another special interest group gets his ear?
Special interest groups do have their place, but to think a presidential hopeful would change his position on a major issue after talking to one side is disconcerting.
A mature Republican? Senile perhaps. Anyone who still sees Cuba as a threat isn’t taking a mature position.
Mature? The man dyes his hair black and has a comb-over.
How “mature” is that?
Outlander,
So, George Bush’s insistence that he’s right on Iraq, has always been right, and continues to be right, makes him a “fool” by your reckoning?
I used to think Nathan was the worst offender ’round these parts in the “Authoritarian personality compartmentalized thinking” syndrome, in which A is vicious if done by a Democrat, but virtuous if done by a Republican. But your latest series of posts is making me think Nathan may have to defend his title.
Interesting that CF doesn’t take issue with anything in my post, yet he does manage to find a syndrome.
Come on over heeah, CF, and let me psychoanalyze a liberal know it all for a syndrome.
I agree with the Eagle on this one, flip flop is just a bi-partisan attack tactic, if nobody admitted they we’re wrong about their positions and changed them, we would see the steadfastness of a rock sinking to the bottom of an ocean.
Maybe I should draw a picture with A rock, with George Bush’s face on it, after someone dropped it off a boat, and he’s saying, “stay the course”.
Maybe that someone that dropped him in the Ocean, should be Dick Cheney.
I think the embargo against Cuba is stupid, all it does is hurt the common people. Why do we worry about oppression in Cuba when we have free trade with China, one of the worst human rights violators in the world?
It’s just one more example of the hypocisy from our “freedom loving” government.
Mary Caruso
Posted February 12, 2008 at 1:24 pm | Permalink
Ahhh, Mary, that is the gotcha isn’t it? Difference? China has ever so much more money — and our debt…
outlander,
When your pathologies are so obvious and unwavering (excoriating Democrats for flip-flopping while praising Republicans for their flexibility is but one example), it kind of lowers the evidentiary threshold. As regular as clockwork; they don’t call you a reactionary for nothing!
In particular, one sees lots of the following from your and others: If George does X, principle of charity; if Democrats do X, impute to them the worst of intentions. We call that “compartmentalizing,” outlander. And it doesn’t signal a healthy psyche.
In conjunction with your unwavering pattern of support for the Bush Administration, regardless of what they do, and your aggressiveness towards those with whom you disagree, it adds up to a “Right Wing Authoritarian” personality. And, as it happens, a psychological researcher named Bob Altemeyer from the University of Manitoba has your number, outlander–and Nathan’s, and Hank Price’s, and ad infinitum…
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Look in the mirror, Wingnuts–if you dare.
Yea, china has our finacial intrests by the balls. China has by far more a bigger disparity in their class system than Cuba does. But then again China will build anything for anybody, and they accept kids working 10 hour days sewing soccer balls together, so they can buy some starchy noodles and rolls for their family to eat. Hell China built our embassy in Iraq, the largest ever. Very industrious hard working people they are, they make the illegal Mexicans look like lazy Americans.
The opression in Cuba can’t be that bad, they have national healthcare.
“Why do we worry about oppression in Cuba when we have free trade with China, one of the worst human rights violators in the world?”
Because not only do the Chinese hold billions of our debt, the Cubans don;t make anything besides cigars that we want.
I have always thought the embargo against Cuba, given who we DO trade with, was nothing but stupid
I shouldn’t say the Chinese government built our embassy in Iraq, rather it was Chinese citizens with a few other asian ethnic groups from all over Asia, it was mostly Chinese workers looking for jobs. Apparently we handed them out painkillers like candy while they we’re building the embassy.
If there is a such thing as logic, it only seems to work in our government when money is involved. Money talks. Maybe that should be a new enhanced interrogation tactic.
CF: As you might imagine, I couldn’t possibly place less stock in your layman’s assessment of my or other conservatives’ mental state. But interestingly, I have observed exactly what you attribute to conservatives, in the words and attitudes of certain liberal posters on this blog. In other words, a complete inability to see in their own behaviors exactly what that they accuse the conservatives of. Thus, I would have to characterize your “diagnosis”, my friend, as “projection”.
Of course, this isn’t the only deviant thinking that I have observe from those of the liberal persuasion. But it is enough to address your comments.
I guess the oppression is bad enough, It sounds like the violence is not bad as it used to be in Cuba, but you can still be imprisoned at the drop at the hat for petty things.
Outlander,
Had you read the link, you undoubtedly would have seen Professor Altenmeyer’s disclaimer that the attitude of authoritarianism he describes applies as much to those at the far left end of the spectrum as to the right. The common denominators are conventionality, an uncritical acceptance of conventional wisdom, and a perpetual obesiance to existing authority.
For all of our faults, outlander, most of the liberals on this blog manifest few to none of the behaviors listed above. Do my posts, outlander, manifest ‘conventionality,’ an ‘uncritical acceptance of conventional widsom,’ or ‘obesiance to existing authority?’ Obviously not.
And if not, outlander, then your attempt to turn my accusations back on my with a two-bit diagnosis of ‘projection’ is, well, a misfire. You’ve been hoisted on your own petard, by employing a criticism that, frankly, usually *is* true when liberals say it about conservatives, but doesn’t hold up when conservatives say it about liberals.
Outlander,
For you to be right and for me to be wrong, your deference to and defenses of George Bush would have to be ‘unconventional,’ not be rooted in the accepted narratives of the last eight years, and not reinforce an existing authority. Plainly, the positions you adopt manifest none of these features. By contrast, it is plain from the positions I take and those I reject that I do, in fact, challenge the conventional wisdom, and reject the supposed legitimacy of existing authorities.
So, outlander, I await your attempt to make good on the charge that I, CF2K, am the *real* right-wing authoritarian, who “projects” his authoritarianism onto you.
CF, of course you are not a “right wing authoritarian”. But your left wing views are no less predictable. You cast yourself as a rebel when all you are doing is parroting left wing talking points and positions. Mirror image.
And CF, those left wing views, should a Democrat win the White House will be the orthodoxy. Then where will you be Mr. Rebel? You’ll be trying to defend the powers that be. Can you handle that?
No CF, it’s a matter of viewpoint and advocating your beliefs and principles. We both do it. As the party who has been in power, we are used to playing a little more defense lately. But that could change very easily and quickly.
In fact, I’m starting to feel more and more anti-establishment.
After going after Brownback now they turn their sites to Huckabee. The Eagle is one sad paper. Kerry flip-flopped, I mean you cannot beat ‘I voted for the war before I voted against it’.
outlander,
As well you should. Republicans are naturally the minority party, having shown their ineptitude at national governance and willingness to pursue the narrowest of ends.
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[...] WE Blog » The Wichita Eagle Editorial Department Blog wrote an interesting post today on Did Huckabee flip-flop or just mature?Here’s a quick excerptDid Huckabee flip-flop or just mature? Posted6:02 a.m. On NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, host Tim Russert had three “gotcha” moments in interviewing Mike Huckabee about his seeming flip-flops on a federal smoking ban, the Cuban trade embargo and anti-tax pledges. Huckabee, who has said both that he would sign a national smoking ban and that he prefers that states and communities decide the issue, told Russert he would sign a federal law “if it were about a clean air workplace, not about banni [...]
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