A Strongly-Intended Clarification

It appears that some guy who goes only by the name "Blue State Republican", who is running a "Huckabee for President" blog campaign has quoted THIS POST of mine (the final paragraph of this post) as a glowing endorsement for all things Mike. While what I posted was, and is, true, IN CONTEXT, and I AM pleased with our governor's response to Hurricane Katrina relief (did you know that Arkansas has taken in the largest percentage of its own population in refugees than any other state?), this in NO WAY translates to, "Wow, he'd be a great president."

I posted in the comments section of "BSR's" post quoting me, explaining that while I am proud of our governor for his current actions, that I do not, and would not, at this time endorse him in any way for any higher office. My comment has apparently been "moderated" out of existence, while others' comments have shown up. Who knows, maybe "BSR" is just running behind, and my comment will eventually show up.

But the current point for me, is that there have been way too many ethical problems with Huckabee in the past, most involving misuse of state funds (there's a small bruhaha over that issue even right now), and particularly disturbing to me, the sweeping under the rug of the incident in which Huckabee's son stoned, hung, and tortured a dog to death while a "counselor" at a Boy Scout Camp.

(Miller County, Arkansas) Two boy scout counselors, 17 year old
Clayton Frady and 18 year old David Huckabee, the son of Arkansas Governor
Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session
at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his
throat and stoning him to death.

Camp officials, who did not report the
crime to law enforcement officials, have admitted that the act did occur and
have fired the boys from their positions. However, no charges have been filed
against the young men.
Arkansas State Police conducted a perfunctory
investigation, but did not attempt to locate witnesses to the crime.

The fact that people who become serial killers almost always start out by torturing and killing animals was not lost on a lot of people. Please realize--it's not that I think the dog incident reflects directly on the elder Huckabee, who I believe to be at heart a good man. I don't think he took his wee sons out and strung up a dog from a tree, stoned it, slit its throat, and said, "That's how you do it, boys." It's the fact that the younger Huckabee had no consequences--at least none that were made public--for this cruel and criminal act, for which most ordinary citizens would have faced a year in prison and/or a $1,000 fine if prosecuted successfully.

I didn't go into all this detail on "BSR's" site in my comments--if he had let my comment through, that was a much milder correction. But by moderating my comment, he left me no choice. And really--if the only way to get your point across is to disallow any dissenting opionions, then you don't have much of a foundation to stand on, do you? I could make a point about not even having the courage to use your real name...but I won't. Besides, I guess I just did.

I may change my mind down the road about whether or not I would support a Huckabee run for a higher office--I'm an intelligent enough person to have the sense to change my mind when circumstances warrant--but right now I don't. I feel like I've been used to plug a movie I didn't particularly like.

And speaking of reviewing movies, that's next. Alex and I have been having a veritable film festival of "Pay Attention At All Times Because Things May Not Be As They Seem" movies, and it got us to thinking of quite a list of them. Discussion will be mandatory.