Huckabee's Nonsense

Indonesia has Boy Scouts and Rotary Clubs.

I did not know that. But I do now, thanks to possible presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. He's broadening my horizons. If only he'd get to work on his own.

Huckabee was on a conservative radio show Monday when he was asked whether he'd like to know more about this shadowy so-called President Obama fellow.

“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 from the average American,” Huckabee said, before speculating further on the president's apparent troubling dislike for the British, and their colonialism in his father's native land. Huckabee also brought up the violent Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. during the 1950s.  

But Obama didn't grow up in Kenya. He spent five years in Indonesia before age 10, then lived in Hawaii, USA. Simple mistake. Huckabee misspoke. But even if the geography changes, even if it was the Dutch, not the British, who occupied Indonesia, the former Arkansas governor insisted that his central point is unchanged.

“I do think he [Obama] has a different world view and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience,” Huckabee said Wednesday on another radio show. “Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.”

Huckabee re-emphasized his point on Fox. “This is not a kid who grew up, you know, going to Boy Scout meetings and playing Little League Baseball in a small town.”

Obama didn't grow up in Kenya and didn't attend a madrassa in Indonesia. That's two strikes, Little League fans.

Still, what would a real American think about British colonialism? Our founders certainly took a dim view.

And what if you didn't play Little League, or join the Scouts? As New York Magazine's Dan Amira points out, Ronald Reagan did neither.

So what's really up, Huck? Last time around you seemed like a reasonable, thoughtful guy. The sort of politician who wouldn't spout this sort of nonsense.

Maybe Huckabee runs for president. Maybe he doesn't. But what I'm hoping is his Kenyan farce might help put a cork in this Obama-the-scary-other garbage before we get rolling here in caucus land. I'm hoping Republican hopefuls will resist sending cute little winks and nods to nuts and start acting like responsible adults.

Blast Obama's policies. Explain how you'll do better. But stop feeding the ridiculous and frankly shameful notion that America doesn't really have an American president. Seriously, enough is enough.

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