Huckabee's Hot Air: Gaffes and Released Statements

Huckabee has joined the ranks of Sheen and Galliano this week, having a series of gaffes and the subsequent statements released to clean up his words. In the two latest (and definitely won't be the last) instances, the presidential hopeful, author, former Governor, and Baptist minister made unwise word choices against our Black President and our Black Swan.

In an interview with WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show, Huckabee, who is slated to be campaigning for the Republican nomination for the 2012 Election, discussed the birth of President Obama:

"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."


"But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."


Huckabee later released a statement saying that he made a mistake and meant to say that Obama was born in Indonesia, but there are clear issues with this explanation:

1. Obama was not born in Indonesia.  Yes, he lived there for some time, but was born and raised in Hawaii.  So even to have "meant to say Indonesia," it is inaccurate and irrelevant.

2. In Huckabee's radio interview, while he expressed concern of Obama's upbringing in Kenya, he also talked about the influence on him by his Kenyan father and grandfather.  There is no mistake in the world that would have had Huckabee thinking that Obama's father was Indonesian.  So the story and his explanation doesn't match up. 

Only days later, he references Natalie Portman in a discussion about the glorification of single motherhood:

From Huckabee's interview with Mike Medved:

"One of the most troubling things is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet that boasts of, hey look, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having children and they're doing just fine," 

 "I think it gives a distorted image that 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 would not get healthcare."



It seems more appropriate to say that the poor, uneducated single mothers on welfare were bashed a bit more than Natalie Portman, but perhaps it wouldn't be a story if a big name wasn't attached to it.  In his released statement he says that he was neither bashing Portman or any single mother in particular.  Really?  You could have fooled us!