Maybe Huckabee Has a Point

Ah, that Mike Huckabee. I could make fun of his name, I suppose, asking if America “hearts” him, or suggesting that his name puts me in mind of Twiki, the cute little sidekick robot voiced by Mel Blanc on the horrible Buck Rogers TV series. Can’t you just hear him habitually mumbling “huckabee huckabee huckabee huckabee huckabee huckabee huckabee” instead of his usual “bidibidibidibidibidibidi”?

But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to point out something he said when interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on Sunday:

BLITZER: Let’s talk a little bit about what the former secretary of state General Colin Powell said earlier today on “Meet the Press” when asked about the status of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, whether suspected terrorists should be housed there. Listen to what General Powell said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL: If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo. Not tomorrow, but this afternoon. Every morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds. And so essentially, we have shaken the belief that the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Governor Huckabee, you agree with Secretary Powell?

HUCKABEE: I know it’s become a symbol of what’s wrong. I visited Guantanamo just about a year ago. My sense was, because I visited every single prison in the Arkansas prison system, and I can tell you most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo and less like the state prisons that people are in in the United States.

It’s more symbolic than it is a substantive issue, because people perceive of mistreatment when, in fact, there are extraordinary means being taken to make sure these detainees are being given, really, every consideration.

BLITZER: But the argument isn’t so much the physical condition as to the legal system that they face. These suspected terrorists, these detainees are being held, by and large, without charges, without any evidence. They’re just being kept there indefinitely. And that’s causing a smear on the U.S. reputation.

HUCKABEE: I understand that. But I’ll tell you, if we let somebody out and it turns out that they come and fly an airliner into one of our skyscrapers, we’re going to be asking, how come we didn’t stop them? We had them detained.

There’s not a perfect solution. The perfect solution is to get people to quit being terrorists. And that’s not something we can easily control. If we’re going to make a mistake right now, let’s make it on the side of protecting the American people. That’s the number one role and responsibility that an American president has right now.

It’s an interesting thought. Maybe we really should make some mistakes, erring on the side of protecting the American people. I don’t personally think Huckabee is an Islamofascistoanarchotheocratic terrorist, but frankly, I’ve never even met the guy, so I’m in no position to vouch for him. Assuming he really is on our side, I’m sure he’d understand if we mistook him for an evildoer and sent him away to Gitmo for an unspecified period of time. Besides, he sounds like he’d like it there more than an Arkansas state penitentiary, so we’d actually be cutting him a break. If he doesn’t go along with the plan, it may be an indication that he’s not on our side, which would mean that in our effort to err on the side of safety, we got lucky.

It’s a win-win.