Posted by
RollinTruth on Saturday, November 17, 2007 4:08:08 PM
Max Brantley serves as executive editor of Arkansas Times. And boy, does he have an axe to grind. Brantley's recent column about Mike Huckabee, running on Salon.com, is getting much press, and was heavily referenced during a recent FOX News discussion about Mike Huckabee's candidacy. It's time someone blasted these distortions and dishonesty out of the water once and for all, so that's what I'm going to do.
Brantley's bitterness has never subsided since loosing his job at the liberal Arkansas Gazette newspaper when it was bought out and merged with the more conservative Arkansas Democrat. Angered over the loss of readership and credibility suffered by the Gazette, liberal journalists including Brantley have flocked to the Times, where they spend the vast majority of their time making a career out of bemoaning the ignorance of the masses who just don't share their leftist viewpoints, and slinging mud at any and every conservative or moderate who comes along. Personal vendettas are Brantley and his colleagues' specialty, and no amount of disingenuousness and hypocrisy is too low for them.
Brantley and his cohorts at the Times seem to take pride in how out of touch with mainstream opinion their viewpoints really are. Calls for gay marriage and unlimited abortion are almost daily events for the paper, and Brantley never tires of offering endless attacks and criticisms of other papers – mostly directed at Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the paper that sprung from the merger mentioned earlier – as if that is a legitimate substitute for journalism, and as if the average citizen cares anything about a roughly 20 year old feud that only Brantley and his colleagues are still determined to fight.
Sensationalist headlines and stories (or rather, attempts to sensationalize mundane, boring bits of political gossip that only people like Brantley – who are obsessed with trying to demonstrate their deep collection of trivial knowledge about insider connections and dealings in local politics and business – think everyone else should find interesting because they do), mixed with a shameless commitment to editorializing in every supposed "news" story, are what makes the Arkansas Times really nothing but a fancied-up, self-important tabloid. Yet, despite their reputation as sensationalist, gossipy, and openly using their tabloid to promote a political agenda, Brantley took it as a personal affront that then-Governor Mike Huckabee's office refused to grant the Times status as a real newspaper organization and thus did not put them on the press release list. Yep, Brantley's vendetta against Huckabee stems in large part from a bruised, oversized ego.
In fact, Brantley is rather open about the fact that he is more concerned with slandering Huckabee than actual truth, something he occasionally admits to in his blog (such as his open admission that he wanted an ethics complaint to be delayed because it would probably be dismissed, and he preferred that it remain alive in order to potentially make Huckabee look bad). A few of the items he has trumpeted over and over, and which of course rear their ugly, dishonest head in his newest Salon rant, should be addressed and dismissed once and for all, and I hope other legitimate journalists hold Brantley and his little band of bitter liberal activists accountable for their lack of journalistic ethics. Let's look at the biggest attacks:
1. Assertion: Mike Huckabee, when leaving office, had all the hard drives for his office destroyed, a massive cover-up and shocking display of unethical abuse of power.
Truth: Brantley himself admits that, well, Huckabee in fact is granted the right to destroy those records, just as all governors of Arkansas are not only entitled to such privacy regarding the same data but also exercise that power as well. The real issue was that, rather than erasing the hard drives, Huckabee chose to have them erased. Why? Well, Brantley tends to imply that destroying them cost more than erasing them, but in fact that is not at all a proven fact, since the state government would have had to pay for professional erasure, but could not maintain control over the data to ensure it had all been removed. This is not to mention that complete erasure would mean the hard drives would need to be reformatted since they would be blank. Finally, the state computers were old and the result of the removal and destruction of the hard drives was in fact that an opportunity was created to upgrade and modernize the computer systems.
Bottom line: Everyone knows Huckabee was well within his rights, and Brantley and others just attempt to make it all sound more sinister by using alarmist language and by usually not mentioning or burying the fact that all governors tend to exercise their right to data privacy and Huckabee did nothing wrong. In fact, when Brantley keeps insisting that Huckabee hasn't answered questions "satisfactorily", Brantley means to his own satisfaction. And of course, Brantley won't be satisfied no matter what, and that's why he continues to sensationalize a non-existent story.
2. Assertion: Mike Huckabee freed convicted racist Wayne DuMond, who went on to molest and kill two women in Missouri.
Truth: The level of hypocrisy and dishonesty here is astounding. First, let's just take Brantley's claims at face value for one second (warning: I don't actually recommend you ever do this with anything Brantley says). What, pray tell, did Mr. Brantley and his fellow liberal hordes think of the criticisms of Michael Dukakis concerning Willie Horton's release?
The difference, of course, is that Governor Dukakis vetoed the bill that would have prevented convicted murderers like Horton from taking advantage of the furlough program, and Dukakis continued to defend and maintain the furlough program after Horton committed the rape and attempted-murder. Had he been returned to Massachusetts to serve the sentence, Horton still would be able to leave again on furlough (luckily, the presiding judge ordered him held in Maryland to avoid that exact situation). Also, DuMond wasn't a convicted killer. He was a convicted rapist. And he had his testicles chopped off, and the sheriff kept them in a jar on his desk. And the victim was related to then-Governor Bill Clinton.
That's right, you didn't misread that. Wayne Dumond was accused of raping a woman related to the governor, and then two masked men attacked him and cut off his testicles while he was awaiting trial. His testicles ended up in a jar on the sheriff's desk.
Another point is that this is one of the few instances where you'll hear liberals like Brantley referencing accusations against a criminal as if it were evidence, even when they were not convicted of the accusation. Brantley mentions Dumond being accused of other crimes, as a way of stressing how bad the guy was and how bad it was for Huckabee to supposedly set him free. Yet, as you no doubt realize, Brantley and others of the leftist persuasion use the majority of their comments about accused criminals to remind us these people are innocent until proven guilty, and how wrong it is to demonize and slander someone (in this case, a dead someone, since Dumond died in 2005) merely accused and not yet convicted.
The biggest problem with Brantley's accusations here, however, is that Huckabee denied Dumond's request for a pardon, and in fact Dumond was released not by Huckabee but by the parole board. Huckabee had made it known that yes, he did feel that Dumond's 12 years in prison plus his castration and the overall circumstances surrounding his case – several local journalists insisted there were enough inconsistencies in the case and enough examples of Clinton pressuring people involved to warrant a new investigation – made him willing to accept that there had been enough punishment and the governor was willing to give Dumond a second chance. Huckabee also met with the parole board, and he says they brought up the issue of Dumond's parole hearing and he stated his own views supporting some form of release but that ultimately he decided not to give Dumond a pardon.
The Arkansas Times, however, has repeatedly relied on the current claims of two anonymous former members of the board and two others willing to use their names, who claim Huckabee asked them to pardon Dumond. That both of the named sources for the story are political appointees of former governors and Democrats Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker (who in fact is the one who made Dumond eligible for parole in the first place, by reducing his sentence) is not treated as important when weighing who is being more truthful, in typical Times fashion. Huckabee is called a liar, the parole board are called whistle-blowers, and everyone pretends that it's unimportant that the autonomous parole board are the ones who released Dumond. It is hack journalism, with a heavy dose of deciding in advance what the conclusion would be and then setting out to find and frame facts to try and support that conclusion. Anything that doesn't fit is ignored, glossed over, or changed.
Bottom line: Huckabee didn't release Dumond, a parole board did and Huckabee ultimately denied Dumond's request for a pardon. Huckabee acted out of a sense that there may have been more to the story, and that the man had served a lengthy prison sentence after having his testicles chopped off and displayed on the sheriff's desk. Obviously, Dumond should not have been released, and if Huckabee or the parole board had a crystal ball, they probably would have wanted him to stay in prison. But for Brantley and other liberals to suddenly put their leftist views about criminal justice and rehabilitation on hold just to pursue a vendetta against a Republican governor, and to ignore the context and facts that are inconvenient to their point, is just unethical and proves how much of a tabloid they really operate. Huckabee supported the death penalty, and hardly made a point of coddling criminals, and this is merely one sad instance where his sense of pity was misplaced. And unlike Dukakis, Huckabee didn't take the opportunity of the second brutal crime to reiterate his support for releasing dangerous criminals, but of course Dukakis' stance is exactly what Brantley and his ilk support while hypocritically attacking Huckabee over the Dumond case.
3. Assertions: Huckabee "stood in the hospital door… figuratively" to stop a retarded teenager from getting a Medicaid-funded abortion after her stepfather raped her, an act by the then-governor which violated federal law requiring states to pay for abortions in instances of rape.
Truth: The girl got the abortion. The actual issue was reimbursement for the procedure from Medicaid funds. And the wording of the accusations, as if Huckabee committed some kind of federal crime, is laughable. Voters in Arkansas passed an amendment to the state constitution to ban public money for abortions unless the mother's life were in danger. A pro-life activist filed a lawsuit to force Arkansas to withdraw from the federal Medicaid program, since the state constitution banned state funded abortions for rape victims but the voluntary Medicaid program demands it. To fight the lawsuit, the state of Arkansas noted that so far, Medicaid funds had never reimbursed for such an abortion, so the suit was without merit – the point being, the state did not want to be forced to withdraw from the Medicaid program.
Huckabee's refusal to approve the release of funds to reimburse for the abortion was explicitly to maintain the state's position in the lawsuit, to prevent a court order to withdraw from the voluntary Medicaid program. The Supreme Court had already ruled that the Arkansas constitutional amendment would indeed be invalidated if Arkansas remained in the Medicaid program, and the original judge in that case then ordered that the state had to make reimbursements for abortions in the case of rape or incest. Huckabee then asked the Health Care Financing Administration for a waiver so that the state Legislature could revise the constitutional amendment so it complied with federal law, and voters would then have to vote again on the amendment.
Bottom line: The girl got the abortion, Huckabee just prevented Medicaid funds from reimbursing the clinic because he was trying to stop the courts from forcing Arkansas to cease accepting Medicaid funds, and in the meantime was working to have the state constitution revised so it would comply with federal law. Brantley is being so dishonest in this case, it is offensive.
4. Assertions: Here is a string of Brantley's other supposedly "shocking" revelations about Huckabee's views on some social issues. Huckabee opposes gay marriage and gay adoption, he supported a law making it more difficult to get a divorce, he opposes abortion, he harshly criticized environmental extremists (not all environmentalists, mind you – Huckabee has been vocal and consistent in his concerns about pollution) as a threat to farmers, he is a former Baptist minister who talks openly about his faith, and he has been critical of liberal journalists (including Brantley) who make it their mission in life to attack him and other Republicans in Arkansas.
Truth: Yep.
Bottom line: These are the real things that drive Brantley and the rest of his ilk crazy, and why they've made it their mission to slander and lie about Huckabee every chance they get. They hate him because of these things, and they can't stop themselves from tossing these items into the mix when they are telling everyone why Huckabee is just oh-so-awful, but they use the other claims and attacks mentioned in the rest of this post to try and sling mud at the man.
5. Assertion: Huckabee is unethical and grabs money and gifts at every turn.
Truth: Let's look at the multiple accusations in turn here. First is the attack because Huckabee, in his campaign against then-Senator Dale Bumpers, acted as his own media consultant and paid himself for the job out of his campaign funds. Okay, some people will find this questionable and others won't. I don't, and I don't think most people will be bothered by it either. The money was going to pay someone for that job, he didn't have nearly as much money on hand as Bumpers did, and I don't find it objectionable that he chose to take the job himself. Next is the complaint that during his run for lieutenant governor, Huckabee used his own personal plane to travel and got reimbursed for it rather than hiring one from the outside, and he initially didn't report that he owned the plane. Here again, I am unsure precisely why this is considered a problem – nothing illegal went on, he was allowed to use his own plane and allowed to be reimbursed for it, so the only "problem" is that at first he didn't specify that it was his own plane, an specification that wouldn't have changed anything at all. It was a minor oversight, and hardly a secret anyway, and of course many candidates use their own private items and get reimbursement for it – much more than the value of Huckabee's travel expenses, too.
Another complaint here is that Huckabee set up Action America, a nonprofit group that could accept funds without disclosing the names of donors. Huckabee was able to then give speeches and get paid for them, without being forced to reveal the names of people paying the speaking fees. Well, I personally think that privacy should indeed extend to being able to make donations or pay people to come speak at your organization without having your name dragged through the mud by people like Brantley, so I definitely don't think there is anything at all wrong here either. And of course, we could easily make a list of the politicians who receive funds or speaking fees or other such payments from nonprofits or other groups not required to disclose donors – the list would include pretty much everyone in federal and state government, probable. That's not to say "everyone else does it so it's okay", the point is that everyone else does it because there's nothing unethical about it in the first place.
Brantley offers up a tale of Huckabee accepting gifts and then keeping many of them, and of course doesn't mention that it is not illegal nor is it uncommon at all. Brantley claims Huckabee used operating expenses for the governor's mansion to pay for a doghouse, for example, or to pay dry-cleaning bills. Well, let's imagine the expense account were used to, for example, buy new furniture – surely a much larger expenditure than a dog house, right? How about if it also were used to throw lavish parties? Would that be a more proper use of the expense account, do you think? Apparently so, in Brantley's eyes, since those are the sorts of things that other governors besides Huckabee used the account. Huckabee was not, in fact, the sort to engage in extravagant expenses more to liberal tastes, but those types of massive expenditures would of course have been ignored by Brantley and others if Huckabee were a Democrat. Well, he's not – he's a southern preacher who grew up dirt poor, and he bought a dog house and paid for Taco Bell food when he ate on the clock during duties as governor (how vulgar, when he could've spent one hundred times as much for some caviar, right?). That sort of mentality offends the Brantleys of this world, because they are snobs and there is a "right" way to bilk the public of its tax dollars, and they expect their public servants to be liberals who do it that way.
Thrown in with this mud-slinging and dishonest portrayal of Mike Huckabee's gift-getting is an attack on Huckabee for thinking that a gift to him and his wife, for their private residence, was his to keep if he wanted it. Huckabee found out that in fact, ethics rules prohibited him from keeping the gift, so he didn't. Yet Brantley conflates this into some sort of supposedly important event that provides deep insight into Huckabee's ethics, and claims it all represents some kind of addiction to getting expensive things. The claim is laughable, based as it is on things like buying a dog house for the governor's mansion, buying Taco Bell take-out while on duty, and mistakenly thinking he could keep a gift given to him for his private residence but looking into it and realizing he was not able to keep it. Compare this to the sort of massive gift-getting and expensive, extravagant spending and events you see from most other politicians – particularly liberal Democrats who love to bask in the limelight surrounded by famous Hollywood faces and serving their favorite expensive French cuisine. Huckabee has always been a man with pretty humble tastes. He came from poverty, he grew up working and living among ordinary people with typical, ordinary tastes, and Brantley's false assertions and slander are in fact more similar to the tastes and behavior of a certain former governor from Arkansas who Brantley and his ilk were inclined to support.
Notice another attack centers on Huckabee using a police plane to travel, which of course is a perfectly normal thing for governors to do. So Huckabee is attacked for using his own plane, and he's attacked for using a state plane. See any problem with that? Part of the criticism about the police plane is that he used it too much, since he traveled a lot to promote business in Arkansas (and it worked, just look at the economic figures) and maintained the high profile the state has enjoyed for decades in many business and trade circles since then-Governor Bill Clinton started the practice of conducting large amounts of travel to encourage economic growth and investment in the state. This, then, represents another silly, immature, and entirely illegitimate attack on Huckabee.
Max Brantley has presented a dishonest, inaccurate, and hypocritical attack on Mike Huckabee founded not in facts but in the fiction that lives in Brantley's own unethical, bitter mind. This is a vendetta by a small little group of liberal trash journalists, nothing more, and should not be treated as serious, legitimate journalism.