Mike Huckabee’s new TV ad features the Republican presidential hopeful telling voters that “what really matters” during the holiday season “is the celebration of the birth of Christ,” apparently a first for a presidential candidate in a TV commercial. The same ad features Huckabee speaking in front of what appears to be a floating cross over his right shoulder.
Yesterday, the ad drew criticism from none other than Catholic League president Bill Donahue, best known as a right-wing culture warrior, professional whiner, an ardent proponent of infusing more of American culture and politics with Christianity. (via Shakesville)
Donahue … an ardent defender of Christmas in what he believes is a secular “war” against the holiday, told hosts of the Fox and Friends morning program that the ad had gone too far.
“The whole idea is to give the appearance of a cross,” he said, “and this is just injecting religion into politics even too far for guys like me.” Asked if the ad was “too much,” Donahue said it was.
“Because there’s a pattern here,” he added. “Every other word out of [Huckabee’s] mouth is that ‘I’m Christian.’ He’s calling into question Romney’s Mormonism…let people talk about there faith, but don’t sell it on your sleeve.”
Added Donahue, “Yeah, I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but don’t become a salesman. Don’t hawk it like that on the street.”
Donahue concluded, “Sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is.”
There’s no word on whether Donohue suffered some kind of head trauma that made him sensible, or whether he’d been replaced with a body double who looks like Bill Donohue, but is actually some intelligent person in disguise.
Of course, Huckabee, who surely expected his ad to generate some discussion, was quick to defend himself.
In Texas for a fundraiser yesterday, he said the ad was a harmless holiday greeting even though it excludes other religions.
“If we are so politically correct in this country that a person can’t say ‘enough of the nonsense with the political-attack ads, could we pause for a few days and say Merry Christmas to each other’ then we’re really, really in trouble as a country,” Huckabee said. […]
Huckabee said the bookshelf is just a bookshelf and shrugged off the controversy: “I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, ‘Paul is dead. Paul is dead.'”
Yes, we’re apparently watching a debate between a right-wing evangelical Christian and right-wing Roman Catholic activist over a political Christmas commercial. Strange days.
For what it’s worth, why did Donohue criticize Huckabee? Given that his remarks seems to contradict everything he believes in, I suspect it’s because Donohue supports a rival Republican candidate, and was prepared to take on Huckabee on anything. I can’t think of any other realistic explanation.
And speaking of Huckabee flaps, I’d just add that a Huckabee campaign spokesperson responded yesterday to questions about the former governor equating homosexuality with necrophilia in his 1998 book, which told readers, “It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations — from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.”
Joe Carter, Huckabee’s director of research, said we’ve got it all wrong.
“He’s not equating homosexuality with necrophilia,” Carter told us. “He’s saying there’s a range of aberrant behavior. He considers homosexuality aberrant, but that’s at one end of the spectrum. Necrophilia is at the other end.”
Carter added: “No way is he saying that homosexuality is like having sex with dead people. That’s not it at all.”
Allow me to translate for the reality-based community: “Mike Huckabee is disgusted with those who are different from him, but there are degrees of disgust. On the revulsion hierarchy, Huckabee puts homosexuality and necrophilia on the same list, but he hates one more than the other.”
The mind reels.