January 29, 2007

"Arthur Godfrey once said that 'I'm proud to pay taxes in America, but I could be just as proud for about half the money.'"

Arthur Godfrey! You're quoting Arthur Godfrey?! Well, Governor Huckabee wins the prize for least hip candidate in the '08 race. That is beyond square. Truly weird! It was incredibly square and old to like Arthur Godfrey 40 years ago... 50 years ago!
MR. RUSSERT: You said this to the Des Moines Register: “Let’s face it. In our lifetimes, we’ve seen our country go from ‘Leave it to Beaver’ to ‘Beavis and Butt-head,’ from Barney Fife to Barney Frank.” Why, why include Barney Frank, a gay congressman, in that reference?

GOV. HUCKABEE: I think it was a matter of a rhetorical device...
Ack! Static! I can't hear anything he's saying at this point. Even the "Beavis and Butt-head" reference is old, old, old. (Note: I'm older than Mike Huckabee.) And the gay-baiting? So tawdry, however much you like traditional values. And, anyway, was Barney Fife a positive masculine role model?

Back to The Bee:
I just completed a book in which I talk about the difference between horizontal politics, where everything is left or right, everything is liberal or conservative, everything is Democrat or Republican. I think the American people are hungry for vertical politics, where we have leaders who lift us up rather than those who tear us down.
Well, you're doing a huckava job.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if he had said he could see Barney Frank running around yelling "Bung-hol-io!", no, wait...that would have gotten him in more trouble!

If he could have gotten Robert Osborne from TCM as his campaign manager...but he went TV Land instead.

Barney Fife is used because all men think their more handsome than Barney Fife...

Anonymous said...

Beavis: hey, Butthead, Althouse says you're old!

Butthead: Oh, yeah? Well, she didn't star in that "I heart huckabees" movie like I just did. or something.

Adam said...

Well, we've gone from Ward Cleaver to Ward Connerly, but I doubt that makes Huckabee's point. How about just that we've gone from Howard K. Smith to Howard Stern, or Grace Kelly to Britney Spears, and drop the homophobia?

hdhouse said...

We've gone from
"I'm the decider" to obviously
"I'm the divider"

Can this guy go far enough away?

Goatwhacker said...

The Beavis/Butthead comment is pretty dated, but with the Arthur Godfrey statement it is the quote itself that is important to convey the thought, and the originator of the quote is incidental. Maybe he could have dug up a similar quote from some more recent celebrity but I doubt it.

Anonymous said...

It probably doesn't help that even his name suggests associations like "Huckleberry" and "Hick"...

Anonymous said...

And the Aurthur Godfrey thing?

It's not too far from using Gracie Allen as your authority on theology.

Sigivald said...

We've gone from essentially no open homosexuals, to open homosexuals in Congress.

Maybe I'm just missing something here, but what's wrong with mentioning that, when he's trying to point out a "cultural shift"?

I mean, there has been one since the days of the Andy Griffith Show, and the part he's talking about is the part involving open homosexuality.

(Why Barney Frank? Because it fits the association scheme with Fife, and because he's a politician, just like Huckabee is, I imagine.)

Might just be trying to read too much into it, I think.

Anonymous said...

1.) I'd sooner use Gracie Allen as my theological advisor than half of those dragoons anyday!

2.) Are you threatening me?

Bung...hole...

The streets will run red with the blood of the non-believers!

Horchata!



Yep! I'm ready to run in '08!

vbspurs said...

That is beyond square. Truly weird! It was incredibly square and old to like Arthur Godfrey 40 years ago... 50 years ago!

Boomer talk-points alert!

P.S.: Please. Lawrence Welk makes Arthur Godfrey look happenin'.

Cheers,
Victoria

Anonymous said...

At this point in time citing Authur Godfrey is so obscure that it's actually the hippest thing he said.

Anonymous said...

"At that point the vet turned and said: 'I'm sorry, she's gone.'"

The room fell into shocked silence as those present took in the news, but then Perky raised her head and began flapping her wings.

The relief reduced everyone to tears, Ms May said, describing one of her colleagues as "extremely emotional" as she left the room.


...I'm sorry, I've started so I can barely stop. [It's a Magnus Magnusson thing.]

No 'ER', no 'Holby City' and certainly no 'Emergency Ward 10' ever held such poignancy.

You are looking at a guy who once bought a photograph of a pig on a school trip to a farm because everyone else was choosing the one of the horse or the cow. I really didn't want to think that pig felt unwanted.

This is a man - a true Englishman - who sobbed on finding his old, stricken and dying cat had taken herself off to try and drown in the fishpond rather than live. Who would prefer to be hit by a bus rather than face the day when his lurcher will need to be sent to the Great Doggie Basket in the the sky.

Who... well, who also eats a shedload of animal meat everyday.

Anonymous said...

B*gger. Right post, wrong subject

Unknown said...

I mean, there has been one since the days of the Andy Griffith Show, and the part he's talking about is the part involving open homosexuality. - Sigivald

Thank you for being honest about where the Republican party really stands these days. They are opposed to gay people being out of the closet, and they damn well intend to use the power of government to put gay people back there.

When I point this out - I'm told I'm being alarmist. Sigivald just admitted the truth.

And Huckabee intends to run on this subject (as does Romney and Brownback). They might not excplicity say so - but they'll use code words that gets their viewpoint across to the appropriate bigoted audience.

Robert said...

Downtownlad, what are you talking about?

Noticing the existence of a cultural shift is not the same thing as being opposed to it, or planning to reverse it.

Anonymous said...

I'm not ashamed to say: I've never heard of Arthur Godfrey. I had to go to Wikipedia, that neo-bastion of knowledge.

Mike Ballburn said...

Wev'e gone from Arthur Godfrey to American Idol.
Wait, that's not that far.

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