I find it stunning that Republicans are allowing themselves to be duped by former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. This man’s governance in Arkansas remarkably follows in the path of another infamous Arkansasan, Bill Clinton. There are so many similarities it is amazing. This article in American Spectator isn’t the first place I’ve read about the Huckster’s past misdeeds but Hillyer does a nice recap of Huckabee’s time in office in Arkansas. There is no excuse in this time of online information for people to be uninformed about a candidates past performance.

From American Spectator:

Fourteen times, the ethics commission — a respected body, not a partisan witch-hunt group — investigated claims against Huckabee. Five of those times, it officially reprimanded him. And, as only MSNBC among the big national media has reported at any real length, there were lots of other mini-scandals and embarrassments along the way.

He used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor’s mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a “charitable” organization he set up while lieutenant governor — an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious “charity.”

Huckabee has been criticized, reasonably so, for misusing the state airplane for personal reasons. And he and his wife, Janet, actually set up a “wedding gift registry” (they had already been married for years) to which people could donate as the Huckabees left the governorship, in order to furnish their new $525,000 home.

According to the Arkansas News Bureau (Feb. 1, 2003), “Huckabee’s personal lawyer, Kevin Crass of Little Rock, has said Huckabee believes there should be no limit on gifts short of a bribe.” After all, said Janet Huckabee, public officials like her husband should be automatically trusted: “Until you absolutely positively know that the man has outright lied to you, it should be enough that the man’s word is that everything was done appropriately, legally, to the best of his knowledge to the letter of the law.”

Read the rest of this story, there’s more on the “moral” character of Huckabee and his wife. This story doesn’t even touch on Huckabee’s pandering and support of illegal aliens and Mexican officials in Arkansas.

Mexico’s consul from Ark. office speaks in Memphis

Technorati Tags: 2008 Election, Mike Huckabee, governor Arkansas, history, Republican candidates, GOP

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