Bang, Bang!

Huckabee’s lame joke leaves an exit wound

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp
5/17/08

Mike Huckabee, “Christian,” just didn’t get it. He made an off-hand remark about how a sudden noise at the NRA convention he was addressing was just Obama scrambling to avoid being shot. To the horror of the entire nation, this sally was greeted with a roar of approving laughter from the biggest collection of gun nuts in the country.

[Zepp Note: The day after writing this essay, I came across a You Tube video of the speech, something I wasn't aware existed at the time or I would have looked at it first.  I had described in my essay how Huckabee's remark was "greeted with a roar of approving laughter" because this is what I had been told.  The video makes clear that the audience, far from approving, was stunned and silent.  I'm no fan of the NRA, and feel they have much to answer for, but I don't need to accuse them of things they didn't do, and put them, even unknowingly, in a false light.  My apologies to my readers for a mistake on my part, and should anyone from the NRA and/or the conference come across my mistake, my assurances that I am putting it right.]

A few hours later, Huckabee apologized. He didn’t apologize to the country, where the outrage over his remarks was to be found, but to Obama. It’s a gun nut thing; they seem to think that joking that someone might duck or take other evasive action in order to avoid being shot is humorous, and reflects on their personal courage.

So when the gun nuts laughed and cheered the “assassination” line, a cold chill went down the back of nearly everyone in the country.

I don’t for an instant believe Huckabee was pulling a Henry the Second and demanding, “Will noone rid me of this troublesome priest?” in front of people fully capable of treating his wishes as commands and carrying them out. Further, I believe that the large majority of the people at the NRA conference would no more shoot Obama than you or I would. There are doubtlessly some who spent a couple of seconds engaging in a little...well, let’s call it “wishful thinking”, because the NRA does tend to attract people like that. But among them, the thinking would be that they wish it would happen, but don’t intend to go out and pull a Lee Harvey Oswald themselves. That type, too, tend to be attracted to the NRA, for vicarious courage and masculinity.

But in the country there are many gun nuts, and it only takes one with a rifle and a Book Depository building.

Ever since he emerged from the pack in March and became one of the leading contenders, there have been quiet concerns for Obama’s safety. The reason for this is that he fits a profile: he’s young, vigorous, he’s seen as challenging the established order, he’s a populist, and he’s seen as more liberal than not. In short, he’s in the same category as John F. and Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long, and William McKinley. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was very nearly assassinated after he was elected but before he would even take office.

While not all assassins are right wingers, liberal politicians are a preferred target. And the American right has a peculiar savagery to it. Everyone’s heard the story of the Texas classroom of children that burst into cheers when it was announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated. This morning, as early reports circulated that Senator Edward Kennedy had been rushed to the hospital with possible stroke symptoms (and three hours later we still don’t know how serious the situation may be) a right winger on the web immediately posted, under the gleeful header, “Drunken Ted Kennedy near death,” the phrase, “What will Obama do without his puppet master pilling [sic] his strings.” The clown was so happy and so anxious to spread the good news he couldn’t even check his spelling or punctuation. Another one wrote, “Here's hoping the miserable pig, who walked away and left an innocent young woman to drown in his car, will die gagging on his own vomit.” Both, with characteristic right-wing courage, posted anonymously, of course.

But you can bet that millions of right wingers will post sentiments like those on the web over the next 24 hours. It’s their nature.

So even before Huckabee’s mouth got away from him, there had been this free-floating anxiety about Obama making the rounds. He’s got the gun nuts stirred up, because they have decided that anyone who disagrees with them is “anti-gun.” Obama, incidently, is not anti-gun; in fact, just hours before Huckabee and the NRA shared their little joke about shooting him, Obama said in a speech, “I want to be absolutely clear about this – I will never take away the right of lawful gun owners to hunt and sport shooting, to protect their family. I recognize this is a traditional way of life in rural communities all across America, including my home state. I believe in the Second Amendment.” Not that this will assuage the gun nuts. I know this because I often get called a gun-grabber because I am critical of those who think guns are a cure for social problems, even though my own attitudes about gun ownership rights are the same as Obama’s. Of course, Michael Moore gets called a gun grabber and much worse, even though he’s been a member of the NRA since his early teens.

The same sorts of people who have the blind, unwavering hatred of Edward Kennedy (and Jane Fonda and Bill Clinton and Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin and and and...) are rapidly developing the same hatred of Obama. He’s black, and there’s a small minority ignorant enough to believe he’s a Moslem, and they’ll eagerly snap up disparaging stories about how he wants to sell out America to Hamas or Hizbollah or whoever the villain of the week is, or that he secretly wants to make Islam the law of the land.

Nobody tells these people to hate, and they don’t need any real reason to hate, beyond the fact that they are reactionary and the target of their hatred is not. Obama could be white, have the middle name of Winston, and bowl 300 games, and they would hate him. Some of these characters would even know what he looks like. (Thanks to an infamous photoshopped image on the internet, some probably think he has nearly black skin, a beard, and wears a white turban.) They aren’t in the same league as people who merely dislike Obama or support Hillary or McCain. These are the haters, the types who blow up Sunday schools and set fire to women’s clinics and want to nuke Iran.

The people who blindly hate like that are dangerous, not because they are courageous or have American convictions, but because they have neither. They will convince themselves that assassination is somehow good for America, and they will do it, provided they can do it from ambush and at least delude themselves that they might get away with it.

And that’s why Huckabee needs to apologize. Not because it was a dumb thing to say, or because it was insulting to Obama, but because remarks like those help legitimize the idea of Obama being a target in the eyes of people who think the only route to freedom lies in destroying or flat-out killing anyone they see as disagreeing with them.

There have been rumors about McCain picking Huckabee as his running mate. My response up until now had been to treat it as a joke, since Huckabee, whatever merits he might have as an administrator and a person, is also a flat-earth religious crackpot. My response had been, “Why not? It’s not like McCain has anything to lose at this point.”

But now, I’m not so sure. I really don’t like the idea that one party has a candidate who has, even if indirectly, suggested that the assassination of another candidate for the other party would be amusing.

And I hope the haters are stymied, and that all four candidates enjoy long and prosperous lives.

Final note: Ted Kennedy apparently had a seizure of some sort. While it’s a potentially serious situation, it is not, at this time, life-threatening. Sorry, right wing cowards. You’ll have to wait a bit longer.