Mike Huckabee should not be elected again to any office ... ever. He says that he believes that Obama was born in the United States, but he doesn't stop there. He doesn't stop there because he doesn't have the courage or feels it's against his personal political interests to clearly spell out that the President is an America, albeit an American with whom he differs on a number of issues. He wants to appeal to the birther movement. He wants to reach out to those who he feels can be motivated to give him support because they feel Obama is not like them, and that makes them afraid or angry or both. He wants to connect with peoples' fear of others. He wants to use the power of exclusion.
He didn't stop at saying Obama was born in America, and instead pointed out that he was raised in India and may have a more British or European orientation. Of course Obama was rasied in Indonesia and Hawaii, but what's the difference. The people in all those places are brown. If they are brown they might be Muslim and at teh very least are closer to being Black.
He didn't even stop at innocently pointing out that Obama was raised in some foreign place where there are a lot of brown people. He went on to say, "[w]ell that's exactly the point that I make in the book ... I have many times publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview, and I think it's in part molded out of a different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and you know, our communities were filled with Rotary clubs, not Madrassas." This is ridiculous, disgusting, and unpardonable. It makes Huckabee, in my eyes, unelectable. He doesn't say Obama went to a madrassas. He doesn't say it because it is not true, and has clearly been proven to be not true. Obama went to a secular and a Catholic school. He doesn't say Obama went to a madrassas, but he dosn't say he didn't and he says he grew up in a community filled with madrasass. That leaves plenty of room for people to come to their own conclusions. Huckabee also intimates that people who don't attend Boy Scout Meetings and aren't connected to teh Rotary Club, aren't real Americans. The President isn't a real American. This kind of exclusion can not ve tolerated. There is plenty of room for disagreement. There is not room for anyone to say that if you disagree with me it is because you aren't like the rest of us, you aren't a real American. That is un-American. It is, pardon my French, bull shit. It stinks to high heaven. We need to take it out to the trash and leave it there. When people use these kinds of appeals to fear and anger and when they use the exclusion attack, we need to exclude them from elected office. It doesn't matter what they believe in. Procee is important. If we can't work together without the name calling and villification, without needing to render our opponents un-American in order to justify who knows what, then we won't solve our problems and we will all suffer.
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