MSM ♥ Huckabee

Dave Wiegel at Reason with the quote of the day:

The Huckabacklash hypothesis relies on the mainstream media getting bored of Huckabee and deciding to exposes his personal weirdness and scandals. There is no indication of this happening. Here's one (admittedly flawed) metric: Do a Lexis search for mentions in major newspapers of "Romney" and "Tavares," as in Daniel Tavares Jr, the murderer released by a judge Romney appointed. There were 59 mentions from January 1 to December 3 for a story that broke about two weeks ago. Then I did a search for "Huckabee" and "Dumond," as in Wayne Dumond, the paroled rapist who committed murder after a parole board, urged on by Huckabee, let him out. Twenty-five mentions from January 1 to December 3 for a story that had been pushed by various people all year.

The fact is that reporters really, really like Huckabee. One reason is his general affability but another is something the other GOP candidates can't steal: His liberalism.

How much do liberal reporters ♥ Huckabee? Well, here's the Washington Post's red-diaper baby and proud liberal EJ Dionne singing the praises of Fuckabee,lauding him for his "policy pragmatism" (read: liberalism) and "loyal distance" from Bush on the War On Terror (read: Edwards/Kerry/Obama negotiator/multilateralist/peacenik).

ike Huckabee, who just stepped down as Arkansas' governor, is the brightest star among Republican presidential dark horses.

It's not just because he, like a certain other Arkansan, has ties to a town called Hope, nor because he lost 105 pounds and has written a popular diet book. And it's not only because he is mastering a conservative form of triangulation blending religious conservatism with policy pragmatism.

Huckabee, if he chooses to run for president in 2008, has another asset: while front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have placed large bets on the success of President Bush's Iraq policy, Huckabee has maintained what you might call loyal distance.

This is what Huckabee said in an interview here last week when I asked him about the surge: "The honest answer for me is that I'm not subjected to the same piles of military and diplomatic information and intelligence that he has, and I'm going to have to trust that the advice that he's based his decision on as commander in chief is good. I don't honestly know. I hope it's right. I have to hope that, because there are going to be people from my state that are going to be asked to go and make it right.''

...

"I think the Republicans have got to be engaged in the protection of the environment. We've not been on the front of that. We need to be. From my perspective, that's a position that I ought to have not only as a Republican conservative, but as an evangelical. Evangelicals ought to be concerned about the stewardship of the earth.''

Terrific. I'm sold. Where do I sign up?

Also, I think I might as well declare my party as "Democratic" while I'm at it. Why not? Why not cut out the middleman?

♥ Huckabee&bodytext=Dave Wiegel at Reason with the quote of the day: The Huckabacklash hypothesis relies on the mainstream media getting bored of Huckabee and deciding to exposes his personal weirdness and scandals. There is no indication of this happening. Here's one...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 04:23 PM

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