You are using an outdated browser.
Please upgrade your browser
and improve your visit to our site.
Skip Navigation

The Dumbledore Candidate

Daniel Larison takes one look at Mike Huckabee's inane new foreign policy metaphor--

During the Cold War, you were a hawk or a dove, but this new world requires us to be a phoenix, to rise from the ashes of the twin towers with a whole new game plan for this very different enemy. Being a phoenix means constantly reinventing ourselves, dying to mistakes and miscalculations, changing tactics and strategies, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity.

--and says what's needed:

So Mike Huckabee promises us a foreign policy that will make sure that America repeatedly bursts into flame for all of eternity.

Even leaving aside the Harry Potter overtones of the analogy (does this mean Huckabee's pro-witchcraft?) what struck me about this was how middle-schoolish it felt, as though Huckabee set out to choose a bird that would just be so boss that all those people who'd aligned themselves as hawks or doves would feel really jealous: A war eagle? No, too much like a hawk. An ostrich--you know its kick can kill a man? No, too dorky looking. Oh, screw the birds. Maybe I should just say, "During the Cold War, you were a hawk or a dove, but this new world requires us to be a cougar that shoots lightning from its paws..."

 --Christopher Orr

Update: What was Mike Huckabee like after college graduation? Perhaps you can get a glimpse here, around the one-minute mark. (Warning: The picture's very dark. But still: Cougars!)