One of those advisers is Janet Porter, author of a 2004 book entitled The Criminalization of Christianity: Read This Book Before it Becomes Illegal! and co-chair of Huckabee's Faith and Values Coalition during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Here's a link to an article by Tim Murphy at Mother Jones: Huckabee Adviser: Obama is a Soviet Spy. Murphy presents some of Porter's more outrageous statements:
Porter has maintained that Obama represents an "inhumane, sick, and sinister evil," and she has warned that Democrats want to throw Christians in jail merely for practicing their faith. She's attributed Haiti's high poverty rate to the fact that the country is "dedicated to Satan," and she suggested that gay marriage caused Noah's Flood. And there's this: In a 2009 column for conservative news site WorldNetDaily, Porter asserted that President Barack Obama is a Soviet secret agent, groomed since birth to destroy the United States from within.She "founded and served as president of Faith2Action, a right-wing group that promotes a theory known as Christian Dominionism—in which Christians are duty-bound to control the instruments of government in advance of the second coming of Christ."
Huckabee has called Porter a "prophetic voice," and credits her, as well as Left Behind creator Tim LaHaye, for making his rise possible.
"Brace yourself for what I am about to say next," Porter began one column, published shortly after the inauguration. She then detailed an email that had been forwarded to her raising questions about the president's status as an American citizen. But that was the least of it: If the email were correct, the president was a Soviet agent—and so were his parents. He had been conceived, in other words, with the sole purpose of destroying the nation from within.A frequent guest on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, Huckabee spoke at length on his last appearance of his admiration for David Barton, conservative activist and former co-chair of the Texas Republican Party -- and wacko amateur historical revisionist. Check out Barton's Wikipedia entry here.
According to an article by Tanya Somanader at ThinkProgress.org, at a Rediscover God in America conference in March 2011, after Barton introduced him as speaker, Huckabee said:
I just wish that every single young person in America would be able to be under his tutelage and understand something about who we really are as a nation. I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced — at gunpoint, no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.Somanader says:
[Barton] contends that “the United States of America is a Christian nation” and the separation of church and state is a “liberal myth.” He is also one of the most radical Tenthers in the country who believes the federal highway system is unconstitutional. So radical was his view that even the Tenth Amendment Center disavowed his federal highway theory.Huckabee has made some disturbing insinuations about Obama's background. Here's a portion of an interview with radio host Steve Malzberg:
MALZBERG: Don't you think it's fair also to ask him -- I know your stance on this. How come we don't have a health record, we don't have a college record, we don't have a birth cer - why, Mr. Obama, did you spend millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate? It's one thing to say, I've -- you've seen it, goodbye. But why go to court and send lawyers to defend against having to show it? Don't you think we deserve to know more about this man?The "growing up in Kenya" is preposterous, of course; Obama didn't visit Kenya until he was in his 20s; an article at Media Matters points out that he was 10 years old the only time he met his father, and he never met his paternal grandfather. Huckabee soon admitted his error, but in an interview with right-wing radio host Bryan Fischer, he made other pernicious statements:
HUCKABEE: I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits --
MALZBERG: Of Winston Churchill.
HUCKABEE: The bust of Winston Churchill, a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours, because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.
Huckabee: And it's really an indication of just how pathetic some of these folks are who claim to be journalists and reporters and have failed to do a decent job. You know, I admitted that I misspoke on that, but I corrected it. But what I have never done is taken the position that Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or anywhere other than Hawaii, where he claims to have been born. Frankly, Bryan, that is not a popular position with conservatives, but it is the position I have consistently taken, and I just am very amazed at the firestorm this has caused, especially in light of the fact that the talk show host himself has said there is nothing to it.Kudos, Mike, for your courageous, unpopular non-birther position, and for admitting that you make the point in your book "that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president."
Fischer: Well, Governor, what got lost in all the shuffle was the legitimate point that you were making, which is that we may have a president who has some fundamentally anti-American ideas that may be rooted in a childhood where he had a father who was virulently anti-colonial, hated the British -- might have something to do with the President returning the bust of Winston Churchill back to England. You know, I was struck by the fact that when he made his tour to Indonesia, he made a point of going to an Indonesian memorial that celebrated the victory of Indonesians over British troops -- again, part of that anti-colonial thing. And so I'd like you to comment on that; you seem to think that there is some validity to the fact that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president.
Huckabee: Well, that's exactly the point that I make in the book, and I don't know why these reporters -- maybe they can't read; I guess that's part of it, because it's clearly spelled out. And I'm quoting a British newspaper, who really were expressing the outrage of the Brits over that bust being returned. And the point was that they felt like that due to Obama's father and grandfather, it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States. And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.
Click here for a New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof on Obama's Kenyan roots. And again here for Tanya Somanader's Think Progress article on the Huckabee/Barton connection and the "gunpoint" remark.
On the subject of Churchill's bust, in an article entitled Obama's grandfather + Churchill bust = Wacky Beck conspiracy, Matt Gertz at MediaMatters.org replies to a similar attack by Glenn Beck as follows:
Beck's evidence that Obama hates Britain is mind-numbingly weak -- all he points to is that Obama supposedly returned the Churchill bust after he became president. If Obama really hated Great Britain, shouldn't he be, I don't know, declaring war on them or something? What's more, Obama reportedly keeps on his desk a wooden penholder given to him by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; the penholder is "crafted from wood taken from the HMS Gannet, the sister ship to the Resolute, a British naval vessel whose wood was used to make the presidential desk."Beck stated on his program:
Third, Beck's sole piece of evidence that Obama hates Britain doesn't add up: Both the British Embassy and the White House have said that the Churchill bust had not been a gift, but rather a loan that expired with Bush's presidency.
Do you remember when we gave the big statue back, the bust of Churchill? Right after Obama got in. It didn't make sense to me, hasn't made sense to me. Any clues, any clues why this gift from the English after 9/11 was boxed up and sent back? I haven't figured out a reason. Why does Obama harbor animosity towards the British? I don't know. Why would he return the bust? A listener called me this morning. Said he had found information about Barack Obama's grandfather in an old Irish newspaper but couldn't verify it. I said okay, what is it? We looked into it. The information, took us about 20 minutes to find. It was out there, but until today I never heard about this information, and I'm kind of in the Barack Obama business, you know what I mean? I don't think you have. Maybe you have. What puts you in a position to act unexplainably in weird ways toward the ally? Something must have happened in your life, and maybe this is a part of it.But I digress: This is about Huckabee, whose views align perfectly with Beck's: all part of the malicious spin that Obama is not like us, that he is "different," and therefore to be feared and mistrusted.
Yes, he's different. Put up pictures of all 44 presidents and see if you notice anything in particular about Obama.
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