Would-be presidential frontrunner Mike Huckabee humiliated himself a few days ago with his bizarre "Barack Obama's childhood in Kenya during the Mau Mau Revolution made him hate America" radio performance. But instead of simply hanging his head in shame for a little while after that, he doubled down on his fictional dog-whistle psychoanalysis of the president during another ugly interview with one of the most insane people in American politics. What a show! What a... show.

Huckabee spoke with Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. That this unfortunate fellow, Fischer, has any say in presidential politics should alarm everyone. He's the guy who famously opined that there should be no mosques in the United States, that gay rights groups should pay for all AIDS research since it's their fault, that the Medal of Honor is being "feminized" since it's not solely based on a soldier's raw kill count, that Barack Obama is secretly planning to turn over control of the nation to Native Americans, and that we need to kill every last grizzly bear immediately. This is the fellow with whom Mike Huckabee spoke yesterday.

How did that go? Buckle up:

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.

Take a few minutes to contemplate what you've just read. We'll wait.

[...Waiting...]

Ready? Good! A few points:

  • WTF?
  • About the bust of Winston Churchill from which they glean so much insight: They make it sound like Barack Obama saw the bust of Churchill on his first visit to the Oval Office and started screaming obscenities before chucking it across the Atlantic Ocean, right into the Queen's face, in a superhuman adrenaline rush. He just hates the British so much! Here's what actually happened, via Newsweek: "Intended as a symbol of transatlantic solidarity, the bust was a loaner from former British prime minister Tony Blair following the September 11 attacks. A bust of Abraham Lincoln-Obama's historical hero-now sits in its place. A White House spokesperson says the Churchill bust was removed before Obama's inauguration as part of the usual changeover operations, adding that every president puts his own stamp on the Oval Office." Scandal! And is Huckabee actually trusting the British press as a source of accuracy and sober-minded reportage?
  • The United States of America, too, was founded when colonists declared and won their independence in a revolutionary war against the British Empire. Perhaps Huckabee and Fischer don't recall this from their schooldays. More likely, though, they do, but associate Kenya's Mau Mau Rebellion with "Extremely Scary Black People," as Joe Klein explains.
  • "Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas." We're going to stop writing "Mike Huckabee seems like a nice guy" in our more charitably minded Huckabee posts from now on. Because he's kind of a dick!

[Image via AP]