A Rush to judgment (Chuck Norris defends Governor Huckabee)

Our country is definitely in a cultural fight for its life. And what's at stake is the very heart and core of America ...

More than any other election in decades, this presidential one has erected a fighting ring in which conservatism will either maintain its title or be stripped of it by the appointment of leadership that will champion secular progressive change...

At the last round of debates, Fred Thompson, degraded by his own dilapidating campaign and threatened by Mike Huckabee's lead in the polls, tried to liberalize Mike ...

Even radio host Rush Limbaugh heckled Huckabee with a similar liberal lashing, accusing him of not being a conservative in the line of Ronald Reagan – an unfortunate "Rush to judgment"...

Any GOP candidate can be dissected to a point that he is railed for having liberal tendencies...

And while former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is also a friend, his record of consistently voting against tort reform, opposing the impeachment of Bill Clinton on perjury, supporting opponents of Reagan (Ford and Baker) in 1976 and 1980, and failing to support federal constitutional amendments that would ban abortion and gay marriage doesn't exactly make him "the only true conservative."

To be fair, even if Reagan himself were running today, he likely couldn't dodge liberal labeling, especially for his signing of the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to aliens who resided in the U.S. since before 1982.

As I've already shown in my past WND columns, most liberal accusations against Mike Huckabee's record on immigration, taxes and crime are also biased, out-of-context rushes to judgment.

The complete record and platform [link in post #2] of this former Arkansas governor reveals a tried-and-true conservative.

Yes, but when all your friends "turn" on you, maybe it's not a grudge, but good judgment

The ARRA is pleased to announce its endorsement of former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee as the Republican Candidate for President. Earlier at its 10th annual state convention on Saturday, July 21, 2007 in Clarksville, Arkansas, the ARRA held a straw poll and Fred Thompson won the unofficial straw poll.

In summary, the endorsement convention delegates voted as follows: Fred Thompson 80%; Rudy Giuliani 6.67%; Ron Paul 4.44%; Mike Huckabee 4.44%; Mitt Romney 2.22%, Duncan Hunter 2.22%; John McCain, Tom Tancredo and Allan Keys 0%.

Mike is a "Republican" and from Arkansas, right?

http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2007/11/arkansas-republican-assembly-endorses.html

Here is my response to Chuck Norris cnorris@wnd.com

Sorry Chuck...

I used to respect you. I looked at you as an example of integrity and of perseverance and the embodiment of the American dream.
I just can not respect your decision to run interference for Governor Huckabee. I would think the issue about the 1023 pardons would be enough to for you, a man I thought had a respect for the law, to step back and do more than defend your man. There is no question Governor Huckabee let lose violent repeat offenders. This is a fact. I’ve researched it and Governor Huckabee does not deny it. It my opinion that it is never acceptable to release violent criminals and I believe that not to be just a conservative position but a human position. I wouldn’t accept his explanation from a liberal and I can not accept his misleading explanation about the Dumond. He was not required to recommend a pardon and he admitted to doing so. That in my opinion provides a severe lack of judgment. You may be comfortable parsing words on his behalf but I would not do that for any candidate no matter how nice.

Lois Davidson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRPPJZnvFLI
Maxwell
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JbZI8WXVdUs

Governor Huckabee also unquestionably raised taxes by $500 million and campaigned for Democrats against conservative Republicans in Arkansas. These are unquestionable facts. I don’t care what “good” was done with the money. He raised taxes and grew spending and is unappologetic about it. He also talks in the language of class warfare. I just can not understand how you can support him. I’ve read the litany of what you have listed but him being “a nice well meaning guy” is just not enough. Well meaning guys have ruined this country. They peddle enmity and call it love. I don’t want to elect a daddy to create new programs and raise the sales tax and make nice with liberals.

I don’t need that. I need to be left alone, I have 4 children and have unjust amounts of money taken out of my paycheck. We homeschool and we bite the bullet for the sake of our kids and the idea that governor Huckabee has the endorsement of the NEA anywhere is disgusting to me. Education is one of the areas where far too much money is wasted for the lie of better delivery.
I see schools built to look like Shopping malls with vaulted ceilings like airports and governor Huckabee seems to see no end to the Education bureacracy.

I also don’t take kindly to his language about our “arrogant foreign policy”. I would like to know from where he arrived at this conclusion? Michael Moore? Moveon.org? Just because the media says something doesn’t make it true. They and the Democrats would’ve had us fail in Iraq and left millions of people to genocide. I don’t need a parrot for the media or the malcontents. You may be impressed but I am not. I don’t like politicians who parrot the lies of the media or global warming on the economy. The perception they create is not the reality. I fight it enough without having a nominee who affirms and appeals to the lies of leftist media.

I am a Baptist but I am not voting for a preacher who trades faith in God for faith in government or mixes the two. I listen to the lies and class warfare and appeal to racial division enough from Democrats and I don’t care to vote for a Republican who speaks their corrupt tongue. I do not believe Governor Huckabee is a horrible man but I do not believe he has the judgment or the integrity to be President of the United States. I ask only that you will pray about this.

You know the pardons were wrong. If you don’t then I’m sorry I ever admired you.

-Fred

We need to reason with Chuck. He is intelligent.

You are the second person to say something along those lines.

We got to hear from Chuck himself for a good half-hour on a local radio show...the host is a militant Huckabee supporter (he is the reason that Huckabee gained traction in Iowa...we were treated to a three-hour per day commercial on one of the most respected radio stations in the country).Here is the URL to listen to the podcast...where you will get to hear, among other things, Chuck's claim that the middle class is paying more than 80% of the taxes. You will need to scroll down a bit to find the Norris segment.

People on this forum are generally intelligent; I will let this interview speak for itself without further comment.

http://www.whoradio.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=deace.xml

HANNITY: Let me ask you the one issue — you split your decision on Clinton impeachment. You voted to convict on the obstruction, but not the perjury. You still stand by that? Was that the right decision?

THOMPSON: Absolutely. It didn't have anything to do with how I felt about him. It had to do with what I considered my role to be. I considered my role to be a judge, and I had to be dispassionate toward the individual. I went back to the founding fathers and what they thought constituted impeachable offenses and was quite surprised, in some respects, that some misbehavior did not constitute impeachable offenses in their views. So I followed that, and that caused me to split my vote.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,278554,00.html

Just FYI.

“The conservative Cato Institute gave Huckabee an ‘F’ for his final term as governor on its Fiscal Policy Report Card...”

I’m a big fan of Cato, but they’re notoriously tough graders. Even so, they did manage to give Governor Huckabee a “B” during his first term, saying the following:

“Perhaps no current governor has been elevated to the statehouse under stranger circumstances. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, was elected lieutenant governor in 1994. Two and a half years later, Clinton’s heir, Jim Guy Tucker, was convicted of a felony as a result of the Whitewater investigation and was immediately removed from office. In the midst of those tumultuous events, Huckabee became the first Republican governor of Arkansas in recent memory. Upon taking office in July 1996, Huckabee immediately backed a 1/8-cent sales tax hike to fund the Games and Fishing Commission and the Department of Parks and Tourism. The voters enacted that hike as a constitutional amendment in November 1996. In his first budget, however, he redeemed himself by proposing a sweeping overhaul of Arkansas’s archaic income tax system. The $80 million tax cut package was enacted in 1997 and became the first broad-based state tax cut in more than 20 years. It increased the standard deduction, eliminated the income tax ‘marriage penalty,’ and indexed the state tax brackets for inflation.”

Notice that Governor Huckabee would have presumably gotten an “A” from Cato if not for the voter-approved 1/8-cent sales tax increase.

"Now the President's actions are known to every school child in America. And in the midst of these partisan battles, many people still think this matter is just `lying about sex.' But little by little, there will be a growing appreciation that it is about much more than that. And in years to come, in every court house in every town in America, juries, judges, and litigants will have the President's actions as a bench mark against which to measure any attempted subversion of the judicial process. The notion that anyone, no matter how powerless, can get equal justice will be seen by some as a farce. And our rule of law--the principle that many other countries still dream about--the principle that sets us apart, will have been severely damaged. If this does not constitute damage to our government and our society, I cannot imagine what does. And for that he should be convicted."

http://www.australianpolitics.com/usa/clinton/trial/statements/thompson.shtml

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.