Huck & Those Surreal Jews

He really does have a great relationship w/ them. Apparently even better than they realize.

Naturally, the ADL, which spends a great deal of time fighting those who would minimize or deny the full scope of the Holocaust, wasn’t happy. “It is highly inappropriate to use America’s mounting debt crisis as another occasion to invoke Nazis and the Holocaust, particularly on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, a time dedicated to memorializing, not trivializing, the 6 million Jews and millions of others who perished at the hands of the Nazis,” said Foxman.

This utterly predictable rebuke appeared to enrage Huckabee. “Governor Mike Huckabee said today, that the demand of ADL Director Abraham Foxman to apologize for his comments regarding the Holocaust were uninformed and misguided and called upon Foxman to apologize to him and retract his totally inappropriate and reckless attack issued recently,” said Huckabee’s team in an oddly ungrammatical statement on his HuckPac website.

The rebuttal went on to detail Huckabee’s support for Israel, as if that mooted any other offensive thing he might say. “Foxman’s remarks are not only factually wrong, but they are hurtful to me personally in light of my unequalled friendship with members of the Jewish community, and I ask Foxman to retract his statement as publicly as he issued it, and apologize for his lack of accuracy in issuing it and for the harm done by attacking the very strongest advocates for the Jewish people and Israel,” said Huckabee.

Plenty of Jews would blanch at the idea of Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who says he wants to “take this nation back for Christ,” as one of their strongest advocates. The NRA speech wasn’t the first time he’s made analogies between Nazism and liberal policies—in the past, he’s spoken of the “holocaust of liberalized abortion.” And he seems to find Jews themselves exotic and almost bizarre. Speaking to Politico in February, he described having dinner with a group of Jews in New York this way: “I felt like I was sitting between Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen—it was really interesting; it was surreal.”

Here is surrealism, admittedly derivative, but we don't want to present Huck w/ anything too difficult for his Bible-believing, seminary-trained mind.

Or did he just mean they were keepin' it real, & he was down w/ it?

Huckabee usually gets away with this sort of thing because he is pro-Israel, if by pro-Israel one means unequivocally supporting Israeli irredentism. Unlike the majority of American Jews, he opposes a two-state solution, and in February he said Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should be resettled in “a territory that [is] in the hands of Muslims, in the hands of Arabs,” which might make him the first modern American presidential aspirant to openly champion ethnic cleansing.

Huckabee’s ultra-Zionism is common among conservative evangelicals, many of whom hew to a theology, premillennial dispensationalism, in which the return of the Jews to Israel plays a crucial role in bringing on the rapture and the second coming of Christ. Huckabee even leads group tours of evangelicals to Israel for about $4,500 a person; naturally, one of the stops is Megiddo, or, in Greek, Armageddon.

Republicans: Fiscal conservatives, or easy marks? The Huckster realizes he has to fleece as many as possible before the rest of them drop dead.

First, that Huckabee could never raise enough to be a plausible contender. And second, that Huckabee—who is building a multi-million-dollar, 8,224-square-foot mansion* in Florida—won’t be willing (or can’t afford) to part with the fat paychecks he is pulling in from Fox, the lecture circuit, and various travel-related ventures. (His trip to Israel was a for-profit venture, in which he played tour guide to 180 travelers, and he is hosting an Alaskan cruise in June.)

Huckabee makes no effort whatsoever to deny either source of doubt. His love for his newly comfortable lifestyle is evident: “My wife and I grew up dirt poor, and honestly, this is beyond our wildest expectations. We are building our dream house! And look, I know what it’s like to be broke. When I ran before, I cashed in my annuities, my retirement plan, my life insurance. And I’m getting to an age where I can’t keep cashing in everything; I don’t want to be a government ward at the age of 74.”

Even five yrs. ago, could it have been imagined that failing in the Republican primaries, let alone having one's lunch of caribou jerky & moose milk handed to one by a popular vote of 53% to 47%, would be an excellent move for one's career & finances?

*He's fat & he has a big house!