Via RCP, here’s Saturday’s Twitter outrage du jour. Some people seem to think he was serious (I don’t), others object to it as an especially crass exaggeration, like saying, “I’ve been working harder than a prisoner at Auschwitz lately.” Even as hyperbole, you’re minimizing an atrocity that’s orders of magnitude worse than your reality. I realize cultural victimization is part of Huck’s 2016 strategy but if this is where he’s going with it, it’ll play as grotesque shtick with everyone except his base. And probably with a fair number of them too.
But let’s be honest. This is also partly a case of seizing an opportunity to pile on a guy whom lots of grassroots righties dislike for other reasons, right? It’s a minor example of the Bridgegate phenomenon, in which a misdeed committed by a perceived RINO gets traction in part because liberals and conservatives each have (very different) motives in making him pay for it. You’d think Huckabee would be more sensitive to that and try to avoid unnecessary rhetorical landmines like this, especially given the grief he gets from his enemies over his social-conservative pronouncements. Does he … enjoy lobbing verbal grenades that force him to play defense for days? A fine trait in a would-be presidential nominee, I think you’ll agree.
Exit question: Bush/Huckabee 2016?
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