The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Snide Explosion

1.10.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 7)

Aside from Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter, neither of whom appears to have even a slight chance to be nominated, the Republican Party has NO conservatives running.

As a conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist, Bible-believing Baptist myself, I would give self-identified Christians one word of warning about Mr. Huckabee. This man is the same brand of "Christian" as Jimmy Carter is. He has a very loose grip on reality.
-- Keith Kunzler
Arnold, Missouri

In reference to the article by George Neumayr about Mike Huckabee, finally someone has articulated what I have been grappling with the past few weeks. He is right-on regarding this double standard within the supposed "conservative" circles. The conservative pundits are quickly losing my attention with their, as George says, "pretentious throat-clearing." Yes, what is up with that? They are beginning to seem more like social boars that care about nothing more than their own pocketbooks than anyone else's.
-- Kirsten L. Villegas

I can't let Mr. Neumayr get away with selling candidate Huckabee as less conservative than the other candidates; and I can't let him get away with calling Huckabee a Christian "conservative." I said months ago that Huckabee is the Christian Left -- he is a liberal, notwithstanding his positions on abortion, homosexual marriage, and homeschooling. Even on the schooling, why isn't he for school choice and making it affordable for parents to send their children to private schools? How is it possible for Huckabee to get the endorsement of the New Hampshire Education Association?

I don't know why Mr. Neumayr focused on and spent his time on Huckabee as the person wronged with claims of not being conservative enough when there are two definite conservatives in the race who deserved his attention instead: Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter. Fred is my choice. He should have been selling one of the conservatives, not defending a liberal as one who is as conservatives as some of the other candidates.

I am one of those conservative fundamentalist Christian zealots that everyone loves to hate. As such, I found it terribly embarrassing for Christians when Huckabee the pastor played backdoor games with the religion issue. He had a great Christmas ad, mentioned the birth of Christ and everything else. The cross from the bookcase was nice, although Huckabee should have simply used a cross. He should have done what he did and then emphatically deny that there was any intent to show a cross - and that even his film crew was surprised by how it turned out. Sorry, not believable - not even from an ex-Baptist pastor. Then there was the incident when he told the reporter that he didn't know much about Mormonism, and when the interview was over, deviously asked if Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil were brothers. Then there was the huge press conference he called to announce he would not show negative ads against Romney, and then proceeded to do just that on live television. These things were done by the one candidate who is constantly described as honest, trustworthy, genuine, real, and as even Mr. Neumayr does, a conservative Christian. Sorry, but Christian conservatives don't act like that, and they don't support the issues Mr. Huckabee does. The criticisms of him from most conservatives have nothing to do with his Christianity, belief in the Bible, dismissal of Darwinism, or anything else related to his beliefs. The complaints are about how he has governed and how he says he will govern.

I suspect the reason Neumayr decided to compare Huckabee with McCain and Romney is precisely because they are so similar. Yes, they have all flipped and flopped on some issues very important to conservatives, and that is why none of them will get my support. I don't believe conservatives are willing to excuse McCain or Romney and their past positions, and neither should they excuse Huckabee's. The primaries will soon tell. Mr. Neumayr should have spent his time to contrast Huckabee with someone like Thompson. Then it would have been clear to his audience that Huckabee is not a conservative.

The bottom line is, conservatives in Arkansas claim Huckabee destroyed both the Republican Party and conservative movement while governor; and that he governed in a backdoor and deceptive manner. I initially tried to support Huckabee, and still have tried to be fair to him all along, even to the point of excusing him on the tax issues and the myriad of ethical claims made against him while governor. However, I cannot excuse his true position on border security and illegal immigration; his 1,033 pardons and commutations of sentences for convicted felons handed down by judges and juries; his utter lack of knowledge on foreign policy and national security and how the real world works; his desire to close Guantanamo; the fact he is so against school choice he got the endorsement of NHEA; his strange and inordinate focus on music and arts in K - 12 education when students need discipline and the three R's; his belief in global warming and the need to spend money to correct it; his support for the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas concerning sodomy; and I believe he certainly will raise taxes to pay for all of those instruments for all of those children playing them from K -12.

Think of the upgrades as the children get older, or when they change their interest from one musical instrument to another. The cost of that one issue that appears so strangely important to Huckabee, will be staggering. Hey, and to think I gave Huckabee a pass on the tax issues because Arkansas is a poor state and they needed funding for books and other things for K - 12 education, as he explains it. Silly me -- and silly you Mr. Neumayr. You need to realize, as I have, that Huckabee is every bit the smooth talker and is as politically skillful as Bill Clinton.

Unfortunately, he, like Clinton, is not a conservative and has trouble with the facts/truth.
-- David Tomaselli

The bar for conservatism hasn't been lowered for any candidate. It, like the teachings of Jesus and the U.S. Constitution, is a constant. The only people in the Republican primaries who meet the bar for conservatism are Fred Thompson and Ron Paul.

Saying you are a conservative and marketing a lot of newly adopted conservative positions don't make someone a conservative. I certainly admire Huckabee's unrelenting pro-life history, but that doesn't make him a conservative.

I no longer identify myself as a Republican, but as a conservative. The Republican Party is no longer a bastion of conservatism, but I am hopeful that it will someday return to representing my conservative positions. The Republican Party has left a lot of people.

I am not in a compromising mindset this year.
-- Chris Hall

While I am not persuaded that Mike Huckabee is the right candidate, I do very much appreciate George Neumayr's article, "Standing Athwart Huckabee, Yelling Stop." I especially appreciate this observation, "But won't Huckabee shatter the conservative coalition? That would be a little more persuasive if those saying this hadn't shattered it themselves. The relative success of Ron Paul and Huckabee is not a cause of the coalition's collapse but a reflection of it. An excessively Wilsonian foreign policy has divided defense conservatives; years of big spending has divided economic conservatives; and a tepid, stalling social conservatism has alienated moral ones."

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Foreign Policy, Education, Trade, Health Care, John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Television, Religion, Abortion, Global Warming, Books, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Military, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, NATO, Conservatism, Immigration, Oil, Unions