Sarah Palin has always struck me as the gift that keeps on giving. One of those people we'd have to invent if she didn't already exist - perhaps the worst spokeswoman the GOP could possibly have given succor, a veritable fountain of punchlines and Onion material. In contrast, the Huckster is more subtle. The things he says are often just as ridiculous as Mrs. Palin, but you have to dig a little. He's articulate, and good at layering his nonsense with warm-fuzzy tripe...like this weekend, when he proved just how out of touch he is with daily American life.
First up is the much-talked-about interview where he referred to Barack Obama's "childhood in Kenya"...but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this:
HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits --
What does an "average American" look like? Gather round, children...the Huckster's gonna tell us.
Huckabee: My point, really, even about talking about him raised in a different country, actually Indonesia, not Kenya, as I do understand, again, it’s right there in the book for me to read and anybody else if they care to, but the point that I do want to make is that creates a different worldview. This is not a kid who grew up, you know, going to Boy Scout meetings and playing Little League baseball in a small town.
Well, firstly, about half the kids in America were Girl Scout material. Secondly, a goodly amount of those kids would never have stepped foot into either brand of Scouts, due to being from a gay-friendly family or just a family unwilling to subject them to Christian fundamentalism. Since 22% of them won't end up Christian, anyway.
About those small towns...around 70% of the country lives in an urban area. This makes the Palin children more out of touch than a kid growing up in NYC, mind you.
Of course, Obama's childhood was mainstream in a way that the Huckster very recently (as in, the past day) disapproved of: Obama's father wasn't in the picture.
You know Michael, one of the things that's troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children, and they're doing just fine.' But there aren't really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.
He's right, most single mothers aren't millionaires. Of course, Huckster thinks the answer to this is eternal abstinence. He does not support abortion, emergency contraception, or federal funding for family planning. In Huckster's world, women are granted no protection from pregnancy whatsoever, so they better get good at avoiding both consensual and nonconsensual sex (a bit harder to do when your governor pardons vicious rapists.) Of course, when they inevitably become pregnant, he castigates them for their "mistakes." Typical. I kind of wish the government would requisition a couple non-essential organs from Huckster against his will - like a kidney and a cornea - just to see his reaction when his body is taken from him by an outside force.
Of course, that will never happen - he's pretty safe from ever feeling the consequences of his behavior and policies. And along with that, he's inculcated from ever having to experience empathy with the victims of GOP policies. But he's not immune to fear, and that's what this all is - fear at how the country has changed, how the world has changed, how women and gay people and non-Christians and immigrants and all those who support progress have seized their moment and refused to let go no matter how many old white men push back.