With Gov. Huckabee, everything he does or experiences is always a first or a superlative. Never happened before. Never been better. Never been worse. Brummett nails him for another outbreak of hyperbole today, this time on his defense against charges of liberalism. The Huckster said history will remember him as Arkansas’s most conservative governor ever. Brum:
Lordy mercy.
This guy seems to have no sense of anything but himself.
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell Huckabee about Junius Marion Futrell. Then I’ll tell him about Ben Laney. I won’t even bother with Jeff Davis and Orval Faubus, in part because sometimes I tend to equate conservative with demagogic, and that’s not necessarily the case. It’s often the case. It’s just not necessarily the case.
Some useful history follows from Brummett. Ernie Dumas, editorializing for the Leader in North Pulaski, likewise notes that Huckabee has a way to go to match Marion Futrell (pictured), who opposed high schools, or Klansman Tom Terral. Dumas agrees that the governor is a liberal only by Southern Republican standards. He mentions that the most liberal governor in Arkansas history was likely a Republican, Win Rockefeller.