Posted on 05/07/2011 11:21:40 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday he's "definitely undecided" on another run for the White House next year and is increasingly concerned Republicans will "Balkanize themselves" ahead of 2012.
A day after the sparsely attended first debate of the GOP primary season, Huckabee said in an interview on Fox News that he had no regrets about missing the gathering and that he's still working toward a decision on 2012.
"First of all, I've got to come to a place where I believe I should run, and I'm not there yet," Huckabee said. "My feeling is I'll be there by the summer one way or the other. And I may not. That's just the reality."
Part of that decision-making process, said Huckabee, is concern over emerging factions on the right he suggested Friday could get in the way of defeating Obama in 2012.
"Do I really want to put my family and myself through this process?" Huckabee asked. "And do I believe that Republicans can do something other than Balkanize themselves? I worry about that ... because there seems to be this sense of fracture where people want you to be everything or nothing."
Former President Ronald Reagan, Huckabee argued, would find it next to impossible to make it through a modern day Republican primary given that he "raised taxes as governor" of California and "made deals with Democrats."
"People speak of Reagan as if he was absolutely steadfast," he said. "He was in his convictions. But you have to govern in a way that is different than you can campaign."
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
For Mike Huckabee to invoke Reagan like he did to justify how "hard" things are these days is outrageous. Ronald Reagan was a great man and a principled leader. Great leaders persevere in any environment and can be trusted with power. Under his leadership 40 million jobs were created and we saw the greatest expansion of freedom and prosperity around the world in my lifetime.
Mike Huckabee isn't qualified to be in the same sentence with Ronald Reagan, much less compared to him politically.
"People speak of Reagan as if he was absolutely steadfast," he said. "He was in his convictions. But you have to govern in a way that is different than you can campaign."
I hope that quote is hung around Schmuckabee like a boat anchor if he runs.
Yawn, you claim the US left Lebanon after much consultation. I claim and history says the US left a car bomb attack on the the US Marine’s barracks. I am pretty sure which claim is believed by the people who eventually attacked US Embassies in Africa, the US Cole and the World Trade Center Towers.
It is not the getting out that turned out historically to be a very bad policy decision, but rather the getting out without making people committing an act of war on the US pay a serious penalty.
I say, instead of considering Huckabee, how about we FReepers talk about nominating a good old fashioned, red blooded conservative in the mold and tradition of Ronald Reagan in 2012.
The last thing the GOP needs is another failure to lead Republicans in 2012. Just say NO to Romney, Giuliani, Trump, Paul and Huckabee.
Hear! Hear!!
We get the candidates we get, not necessarily ones we might wish we had. Some daydreamers hold out for an ideal that will never come.
There's not a single GOP candidate who won't get the RINO label over something or several things.
We need to focus on finding an articulate, likeable candidate with a defensible record, someone having shown good judgement on core issues.
I don't think that describes Huckabee.
May God help us to save ourselves from these RINOs. They will destroy our country, given the chance.
The US Marines were sent into Beirut Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force along with the Brits, Italians and French. In reality, the US Marines were thrown into the middle of a civil war and placed in harms way without proper rules of engagement permitting them to defend themselves. If the Marines had been given proper rules of engagement and if better security measures had been taken, the Marine barracks bombing could have been stopped. The US military personnel stationed in Beirut and ALL the peacekeepers, were doomed from the get-go.
IMO, the mistake wasn't withdrawing in a timely manner, as Reagan did. The real mistake was going into Beirut Lebanon in the first place. That is where Reagan went wrong.
Having said that, Reagan wasn't about to expand the civil war in Lebanon, into a larger regional conflict. That would have brought the Soviet Union in on the side of Iran and Syria. Reagan's foreign policy challenge in 1983, was fighting and winning the Cold War. An all out escalation of hostilities over the Marine barracks and the US Embassy bombings wouldn't have solved the multiple issues facing life in the Middle East.
If you want to employ the 20/20 hindsight of history to criticize Reagan for his lack of sufficient response following the Marine barracks bombing in 1983, fine. But Reagan did not cut and run.
Following the Marine barracks bombing, Reagan took limited military action. Reagan ordered fighter attacks from the aircraft carriers Independence and Kennedy, launched attacks against terrorist sights in Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains in retaliation for the Beirut bombing. Reagan also ordered the USS New Jersey to shell terrorists outposts within Lebanon.
In February 1984, just before the US "peacekeepers" withdrew from Beirut Reagan ordered the USS New Jersey to bombard Druze and Syrian positions in the Bekka Valley east of Beirut. Some 300 shells were fired, killing the general commanding Syrian forces in Lebanon and several other senior officers. This was the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War.
So Reagan did stand up to the terrorists. What Reagan didn't do, was exacerbate the civil war that was going on in Beirut and all of Lebanon at that time. Again, there were geopolitical circumstances to consider that involved the Soviets. An all out war wasn't in the cards.
We did some shelling, and allegedly a car bombing of our own, but it was Cap Weinberger who pushed against the air strikes Reagan and the French were prepared to make on the grounds it wasn't clear Iran was behind the barracks attack. While we secretly indicted a "mastermind" but he never came to trial and was blown up in a 2008 car bombing.
Sounds to me like you'd have wanted to embroil American even more directly in Lebanon's Civil War.
Watch us end up with another McCain RINO candidate in 2012. I don’t have enough faith in the electorate.
I detest this hypocrite.
We really have to wrest control of the GOP from the stodgy old coots in Washington who are ‘way too cozy with the left and get some TEA in the Party.
Huckabee will give in to the dems in nothing flat... He is a con artist....He really is a Huckster......I don’t like him.
JMHO.......
Immediately following the Marine barracks truck bombing, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to knock off a military barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. DefSec Weinberger opposed such action. Weinberger told Reagan, any attack without positive proof of who committed the truck bombing, would lead to an expanded civil war dragging in other Arab nations, maybe pulling the Soviets into the conflict, and undermining Reagan’s efforts to win the Cold War.
In a September 2001 PBS Frontline interview, former DefSec Weinberger said: “we still do not have the actual knowledge of who did the bombing of the Marine barracks at the Beirut Airport, and we certainly didn’t then”.
In May 2003, District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth concluded, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the responsible party in the 1983 Marine Barracks attack. He based this on the grounds that Iran founded Hezbollah and financed the group for years.
Agreed. We have a long row to hoe.
Reagan was better than George Bush by far! Reagan brought down the Evil empire in 8 years. George Bush could never have done that. George Bush had a Rep Senate and House and he couldn’t get our Southern Border closed. Couldn’t get funding shut down for PBS, ACORN, Planned Parenthood, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.
Listen to yourself. You’re suggesting moderation, when in fact, the elecorate just got through electing TEA Party candidates who want the repeal of obamacare!
No thanks. The electorate is to the Right of center.
A solid conservative wins every time.
If moderates and Independents want to join conservatives in 2012 helping the GOP win and Obama lose, I say great.
"A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.
If there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way."
Ronald Reagan Speech: Let Them Go Their Way, March 1, 1975: 2nd Annual CPAC Convention
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