Craziest Republican of the Day: Mike Huckabee

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Again.

Last week it was for saying that "Evangelicals" (e.g., Christian Zionists like him) are more supportive of Israel than American Jews. Don't even get me started on that nonsense again.

Today it's for saying that, under Obamacare, Ted Kennedy would literally have been told to "go home to take pain pills and die."

Seriously. That's a direct quote.

Now, I'm not sure if Huckabee is just stupid, or what. Does he just not get it, or is he just a malicious liar, the sort of loose-with-the-truth ideologue who spins right-wing propaganda and advances Republican objectives? That is, does he know that he's lying or not? Maybe it's all mixed up in some hyper-partisan mental mash, with Huckabee and his ilk simply unable to tell anymore, if they ever could, what is true and what isn't -- or maybe, just maybe, they think that whatever they say, whatever they believe, is true.

Regardless, saying that Kennedy would have been left to die, and thereby trying to score political points off his death, is just repugnant.

I mean, really? Opponents of reform -- the sort of meaningful reform Kennedy fought for his whole life, reform with a robust public option -- were the ones who had Kennedy's back, whereas Kennedy's own friends would essentially have killed him off even earlier? Would Kennedy really have supported such reform if it had meant it would have left the elderly to die without adequate care?

Come on, this is fucking ridiculous, which is pretty much what Huckabee is. He calls Kennedy "heroic" and praises him for choosing to keep fighting for his life, and yet he continues to wage a campaign of lies against health-care reform?

It's crazy, yes, but it's also shameless, an appalling abuse of Kennedy's life, death, and legacy.