What's with this ?
Bombs away
Mike Huckabee has been gaining momentum in the Republican race for the presidency, but a senior editor at the American Spectator says his time as governor of Arkansas was filled with scandal.
"National media folks like David Brooks, dealing in surface appearances only, rave about what a nice guy Huckabee is, and a moral exemplar to boot. If they only did a little homework, they would discover a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics," Quin Hillyer wrote yesterday at Spectator.org.
"Fourteen times, the ethics commission — a respected body, not a partisan witch hunt group — investigated claims against Huckabee. Five of those times, it officially reprimanded him. And, as only MSNBC among the big national media has reported at any real length, there were lots of other mini scandals and embarrassments along the way.
"He used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor's mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a 'charitable' organization he set up while lieutenant governor — an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious 'charity.' " |
