Asshole of the Month: Mike Huckabee

What can we say about a guy who fries squirrels in a popcorn popper? Well, as it turns out, we can say plenty more about the Republican, whose tenure as governor of Arkansas still causes a stink. Aside from his squirrel-popping revelation, the Fox TV talk-show host admits that he likes to shoot animals. Okay, a lot of people like to hunt. But check out what he told one NRA group: “I’m pretty sure there will be duck-hunting in Heaven, and I can’t wait!” How odd. To Huckabee, Heaven is a place where you kill things. Not what most people think of when contemplating the Pearly Gates. And he was a Baptist preacher?!

But Mike isn’t the only one in the Huckabee family who likes to kill critters. While he was governor of the Razorback State, his son David was accused of torturing and hanging a stray dog. Daddy defended the boy, who was 17 at the time, by saying, “There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated.”Well, okay then, who wouldn’t hang an emaciated dog by the neck, slit its throat and then stone it for good measure? We’ll bet that David believes Heaven is filled with dead puppies. Although Mike Huckabee denies any wrongdoing in regard to the foregoing, John Bailey claims the governor fired him as head of the Arkansas State Police for refusing to cover up David’s crime. I.C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, confirmed that Huckabee interfered in the investigation.

Also while serving as governor, Huckabee was accused of dipping into public funds. Investigated 16 times and cited five times by the Arkansas Ethics Commission, Huckabee is said to have pocketed $112,000 under questionable circumstances in 1999. He also claimed $70,000 worth of furniture at the governor’s mansion upon leaving office in 2007. Moreover, he is said to have spent state funds on boat fuel, clothing alterations, dry cleaning, pantyhose, a doghouse and other non-jobrelated items. And let’s not forget the personal use of State Police aircraft as transportation for Huckabee and his family. Regarding the furniture at the governor’s mansion, Huckabee agreed to leave it behind due to public outrage. But guess what? By the time he and his family moved out, the furniture had magically disappeared!

You think that’s bad? How about this? In Arkansas it’s illegal for a departing governor to accept more than $100 in gifts from appreciative citizens (or political benefactors). So what did Mike do? He and his wife, Janet, skirted the law by setting up bridal registries at several retail outlets for $7,000 in housewares and $1,000 in gift cards. In case you’re confused, the answer is yes, the couple had already been married more than 30 years. Huckabee, it should be noted, was good at lining his own pockets even before he became governor of Arkansas. As lieutenant governor he made $61,000 delivering speeches to a nonprofit organization called Action America. Now get this: Huckabee founded Action America! And it’s not at all clear that it has ever donated a penny to anyone else. However, none of the preceding qualifies him as an Asshole. He’s garnered that award thanks to his extreme and farfetched opinions. Among those, nothing tops his denial of evolution and belief that Adam and Eve were real people. What we know about the rest of Huckabee’s religious views is limited. Apparently, just like the information stored on the hard drives that were destroyed at his behest when he left the governor’s office, Huckabee’s old sermons are nowhere to be found.

But according to Mother Jones magazine, here’s what Huckabee said during a failed run for the U.S. Senate in 1992: “Homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk.” He went on to say that AIDS victims should be isolated and that he’s against spending government money in search of a cure. His asinine proposal? “An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding, be encouraged to give…increased amounts for AIDS research.” In other words, let the fags die. However, in terms of pure ugliness, nothing compares to Huckabee’s just plain stupid, insensitive and unforgivable decision, while governor, to secure the parole of serial rapist and self-confessed murderer Wayne DuMond. DuMond, whom Huckabee claimed had gotten a “raw deal…and hadn’t been treated fairly,” was a real piece of work. One victim testified that DuMond held a butcher knife to her throat while he raped her and that he threatened to come back and rape and kill the woman’s three-year-old daughter, who’d been asleep in bed beside her during the assault, if she told anyone. DuMond’s crimes also included helping beat a man to death with a claw hammer, but Governor Huckabee released him anyway because the prisoner claimed to have been “born again.” And maybe because one of the rape victims, a 17-year-old, was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, who, as Arkansas governor, had previously denied DuMond’s release.

In fact, Huckabee pardoned or reduced the sentences of 1,033 prisoners, including 12 murderers—twice as many as his three predecessors combined! He seemed especially inclined to free cons who claimed to be bornagain Christians, played in a prison band or worked in the governor’s mansion. Perhaps most of those who’d been released went legit, but DuMond went on to rape and kill two more women. And before being gunned down himself, Maurice Clemmons—whose sentence had also been commuted by the religious zealot—was the only suspect in the 2009 slayings of four police officers in Washington State. All those murders stain Huckabee’s hands. Finally, it would be wrong not to mention that the former fatty, who penned the book Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork, is once again gaining weight—a lot of weight! (But not as much as his son, David.) If Mike Huckabee doesn’t get it under control soon, we won’t have to worry about him being a Presidential nominee in 2012. Bon appétit, Asshole!