Huckabee taunting tigers San Francisco?

From Truthdig:

After equating homosexuality with bestiality, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was attacked at the San Francisco Zoo by a gay tiger.

Huckabee had scheduled a campaign stop at the zoo where he made his controversial remarks about homosexuality and bestiality, not realizing that he was standing within earshot of a Bengal tiger with a homosexual lifestyle.

According to onlooker Tracy Klujian, 27, “the way that tiger started growling during the speech, you could tell that it felt like it was being taunted.”

As Huckabee’s remarks about homosexuality and bestiality reached their peak, the irate tiger leaped over an 18-foot barrier and began mauling the presidential candidate.

Within minutes, police responding to a 911 call were on the scene, where they fired tranquilizer darts at both the tiger and Huckabee, who had continued to make his offensive remarks throughout the mauling.

According to one aide, the unfortunate tiger attack incident has done nothing to change Huckabee’s position on gay marriage: “Not only that, but now he’s opposed to tigers marrying other tigers.”

I still say it's not the tiger's fault ....

Huckabee, clueless on facts again, crosses picket line

From the Los Angeles Times:

DES MOINES -- Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was a guest Wednesday on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" -- though he seemed earlier in the day not to know that he would be crossing a picket line to appear.

Huckabee flew from Iowa to make the appearance, a day before the state's first-in-the- nation caucuses. The candidate made no mention of the Writers Guild strike during his appearance and instead joked about having lived in a "triple-wide" trailer when he was governor of Arkansas. The amateur musician also played his guitar in Leno's band.

Strike supporters outside the NBC studios carried signs calling Huckabee a scab. One read: "Huckabee you can't deny this cross."

The Leno show is among those being struck by the Writers Guild of America.

Separately, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made a brief taped appearance on David Letterman's show. But Letterman, who owns his own production company, broke from other producers and reached an accord with writers last week. There is no such deal with Leno's show.

Writers Guild strike coordinator Jeff Hermanson said there was "no doubt about it" that Huckabee would be crossing a picket line by appearing on Leno's show, which is not part of any settlement.

Democratic candidates have vowed to honor the writers' picket line.

Earlier Wednesday, Huckabee, while campaigning in Iowa, said he did not believe he would be crossing a picket line to appear with Leno because he thought writers had settled their differences with the late-night shows.

"My understanding is that there was a special arrangement made for the late-night shows, and the writers have made this agreement to let the late-night shows to come back on, so I don't anticipate that it's crossing a picket line," Huckabee told journalists.

When reporters noted that the writers settled with only Letterman's show, Huckabee protested: "But my understanding is there's a sort of dispensation given to the late-night shows, is that right?"

Huckabee added that he supports the writers, "unequivocally, absolutely."

I don't know which I find more disturbing: either he's completely clueless or he is a complete liar. We've already tried both of those traits in the White House -- in fact we've currently got a two-fer with George W. -- and it's not worked out so well.

Does God want Mike Huckabee to win in Iowa?

Um, doesn't God have better things to be doing than powering the "surge" in Mike Huckabee's campaign? Not according to the Huckster. Watch it yourself (prepare to be majorly creeped out).

Today's Huckabee alert: Son is a dog strangling airline terrorist

The latest edition of Newsweek reports that Mike Huckabee's son could be, uh, shall we say, a negative. In the article "A Son’s Past Deeds Come Back To Bite Huckabee," Newsweek reports on

allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark.

But wait -- there's more! Apparently the Huckster leaned on authorities who were investigating the charges, successfully getting them to drop the investigation despite several witness accounts.

It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas's state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee's chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor's request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee's Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer's intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee's office and fired. "I've lost confidence in your ability to do your job," Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was "I couldn't get you to help me with my son when I had that problem," according to Bailey.

Huckabee Junior's most recent troubles were in April of this year, when he attempted to take a 40-caliber Glock pistol in his black carry-on bag, along with 8 live rounds in the gun and a nine-round clip in the bag onto a plane. Mike Huckabee himself explained that his son:

grabbed the bag on the way to the airport and didn't realize the gun was inside

And come on now, who hasn't done that?

Mike Huckabee's history of caving to right-wing extremists cause for extreme concern

Before you jump onto the Mike Huckabee bandwagon, make sure you look at the complete history of this Arkansas governor. CBS News reports that Huckabee actively intervened in the parole hearings of a convicted rapist to release the man. The man went on to rape and murder another woman. Huckabee's reason for releasing the man: just as Bill Clinton was rising to national prominence, right-wing journalists and talk show hosts claimed the man was "railroaded" because he had raped a distant cousin of Clinton's, and the cousin was not "believable." This, despite mountains of evidence against the man.

From CBS:

In 1985, [Wayne] DuMond was convicted of the rape of a 17-year-old girl with a connection to then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton: She was the governor's distant cousin and the daughter of a major campaign contributor.

As Clinton rose to national prominence, the case came to the attention of his critics. Journalists and talk show hosts questioned the victim's story and suggested that DuMond had been railroaded by the former governor. Steve Dunleavy, a New York Post columnist, took up the case as a cause, calling DuMond’s conviction "a travesty of justice."

The story also came with a tabloid-ready twist: DuMond said that while awaiting trial, masked men broke into his house and castrated him. Though there were doubts about the story, it engendered sympathy for DuMond among Clinton foes.

DuMond's sentence had been set at life in prison, plus 20 years. In 1992, Clinton's successor in the Arkansas governor's mansion, Jim Guy Tucker, reduced that sentence to 39 years, making DuMond eligible for parole.

When Huckabee became governor in 1996, he expressed doubts about DuMond's guilt and said he was considering commuting his sentence to time served. After the victim and her supporters protested, Huckabee decided against commutation. But in 1997, according to the Kansas City Star, Huckabee wrote a letter to DuMond saying "my desire is that you be released from prison." Less than a year later, DuMond was granted parole.

So Huckabee takes an active role to set Dumond free, despite warning from his victims that he would rape and do much worse again. From the Arkansas Times:

Only six weeks after Dumond moved to Missouri, Carol Sue Shields, of Parkville, Mo., was found murdered in a friend’s home. She had been sexually assaulted and suffocated.

In late June 2001, Missouri authorities charged Dumond with the first-degree murder of Shields. The Clay County, Mo., prosecutor’s office asserted that skin found under Shield’s fingernails, the result of an apparent struggle with her murderer, contained DNA that matched Dumond’s.

Missouri authorities also say that Dumond is the leading suspect in the rape and murder of a second woman, Sara Andrasek, of Platte County, Mo., though he has not yet been charged with that crime.

Andrasek was 23. Like Shields, Andrasek had her brassiere cut from her body; Dumond cut Stevens’ bra off before he raped her.

“It’s as if he wanted to leave us his calling card,” a Missouri law enforcement officer said.

When asked about this case today, Huckabee denies taking part in Dumond's release, claiming former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker made Dumond eligible for parole and saying the Post Prison Transfer Board made the decision on its own to free Dumond.

However, from that same Arkansas Times article:

“I signed the [parole] papers because the governor wanted Dumond paroled. I was thinking the governor was working for the best interests of the state.”
—Ermer Pondexter, ex-member of the board of pardons and parole