So, Huckabee appeals to the xenophobic Birther demographic, and he wasn't smart enough to get the facts straight before shooting his mouth? Then when he's called on it, his spokesman completely lies about which country he had actually meant to say despite all the context that Huckabee gave?CNN wrote:Mike Huckabee said Monday that President Obama's world view is most certainly colored by where he grew up.
The problem? Huckabee appears to falsely believe the president grew up in Kenya.
"I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough," Huckabee said of the president in an interview with New York radio station WOR. "And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American."
Huckabee, the former presidential candidate and current Fox News host who has said he is thinking about mounting another campaign, added, "his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."
A transcript and audio of the interview was circulated by MediaMatters, a liberal media watchdog group.
Obama, whose father is Kenyan, in fact grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia.
But in the interview with WOR's Steve Malzberg, Huckabee repeated his stance that he does not doubt the president was born in the United States.
"I know the Clintons…and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it," Huckabee said.
Huckabee spokesman Hogan GIdley told CNN the comment was nothing more than a misstatement, telling CNN the former governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia.
However, the Mau Mau rebellion, referenced in Huckabee's comments, was an uprising in Kenya that occurred from 1952 to 1960 when an anti-colonial group, the Mau Mau, rebelled against the British in an attempt to gain independence from British rule and remove European settlers from the country.
"When the Governor mentioned he wanted to know more about the President, he wasn't talking about the President's place of birth – the Governor believes the President was born in Hawaii," Gidley said. "The Governor would however like to know more about where President Obama's liberal policies come from and what else the President plans to do to this country – as do most Americans."
I saw this story covered on MSNBC today, by two or three separate anchors. NONE of them pointed out the simple truth that all the context of Huckabee's words (Mau Mau revolution, Kenyan forefathers) meant that the "Indonesia" excuse was complete bullshit. I repeat: They caught a leading GOP presidential hopeful making himself look like a bigoted, dishonest imbecile, and they said nothing aside from plainly reporting the interview. Is this what passes as hard-hitting reporting on the "liberal" network? Because when Fox gets some rhetorical material like this, they don't hesitate to use it.