Fresh Loaf

Excitement builds for Mike Huckabee's April visit to Atlanta.

Former presidential candidate and rodent chef Mike Huckabee will visit Atlanta next month to speak as part of the Urban Land Institute’s 2009 Spring Council Forum.

The former governor of Arkansas, who now hosts a bizarre television show on a comedy network, will be the event’s keynote speaker. Other notables scheduled to speak at the forum include Mayor Shirley Franklin, Charlie Rose and some guy I’ve never heard of but who looks very, very smart.

Jokes aside, ULI organizes thought-provoking events, and this forum’s schedule is worth a look if you’re a lover of urban environments. On the agenda are a variety of seminars and break-out sessions, as well as mobile sessions where attendees can learn about the Beltline, Atlantic Station and Buckhead. Thursday promises a presentation about the current economic crisis.

For more information, visit ULI’s event website. Any welcome gifts of sautéed teriyaki opossum will be immediately incinerated, so don’t even try it!

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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That John McCain. He’s a decider. He knew about that whole Troopergate thing before choosing Sarah Palin for his VP candidate. At least, he says he did.

And he knew about Palin’s daughter Bristol being pregnant.

He knew Palin considers the Iraq war “a task that is from God.” He also knew that Alaska’s two leading newspapers, Republican state Senate leader, Republican House leader and mother in-law would guffaw unkindly about Palin as a vice presidential candidate. And, of course, he knew that her first foray into public life was as a beauty contestant. (more…)

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CLINTON: Bounces back in the race for Democratic phone answerer nomination. Texas caucus still TBD.

HUCKABEE: Math: 1. Miracles: 1÷0.

OBAMA: Gets another Georgia superdelegate.

LANIER: Up two feet, but will drop again soon. Don’t think you’re off the hook, Tennessee.

GBD 08058: Don’t eat chicken, meatloaf or turkey that says that on it.

CLAYTON SCHOOL BOARD: Accreditation schmaccreditation. No one makes a fool of Norreese Haynes! (Well, except Norreese Haynes.)

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The environment’s one of the most important issues our country and world face, but to this point has gone relatively uncovered. This is the best rundown on the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates’ positions I’ve seen yet. It’s filled with links to other articles and resources. Brookings did a great job on this.

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NPR’s Michelle Norris interviewed the Huckster on “All Things Considered” today. Not a single question or answer on squirrel munching.

I was gravely disappointed. MSNBC’s Scarborough did a much better job getting to the bottom of this topic.

SQUIRREL SHAME? Is Huckabee hiding his culinary roots?
(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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With an 8-point margin Saturday over Republican front-runner John McCain in the Louisiana GOP primary, Mike Huckabee has completed his sweep of the nation’s squirrel-eating states.

On Super Tuesday, Huckabee won in such squirrel-gobbling centers as West Virginia, Tennessee and of course Arkansas, where he served as governor. On Saturday, he also picked up a win in Kansas and possibly one in Washington. Neither of those states is known to be big on bushy-tail cuisine.

Huck first brought up his squirrel-preppin’ talents and squirrel-eatin’ ways as he campaigned in an MSNBC interview for the South Carolina primary. But South Carolinians, it turns out, are primarily into ‘possum.

It’s not clear whether Huck’s rodentia recipes contributed to his Super Tuesday victory in Georgia, where squirrel had gone out of fashion but appears to be making a comeback.

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The Drake Diner stops breakfast at 11. A diner! Further proof Iowa sucks.

— Shebinator, one of two local bloggers I know of who was actually in Iowa last night. If there were others, please educate me.

Shelby’s feelings about Iowa might be colored by the fact that his favorite Democrat, Sen. Joseph Biden, dropped out of the race after his poor showing.

Or maybe Iowa just really, really sucks.

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The Clinton machine will do its best to slime Obama in the coming days, but — and I’ve been waiting to say this for years — their time has passed. The race is clearly defined now, and I don’t see voters opting for polarization over real change.

— ATLMalcontent on the perhaps fatally wounded candidacy of the senator he likes to call Hillbot.

Mr. Malcontent also lavished praise on Obama’s victory speech (which really was amazing), noting the similarities between Obama’s gift for rhetorical uplift and the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s.

Sen. Clinton also evokes RFK’s memory, but not in the same way. Like RFK, Clinton is attempting to return her family to the White House via a carpetbagged New York Senate seat.

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It’s clear that the voters want change-now they have to look hard at Edwards and Obama and decide just what sort of change they really want.

— Amy Morton at Georgia Women Vote was in Iowa last night. As you might have gathered from the order in which the names appear, she’s an Edwards supporter.

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Therefore, I support Mike Huckabee because he wants to get the federal government out of my pocket by endorsing the “Fair Tax”.

— The Oracle of Winder, posting at BuzzBrockway.com, supports Mike Huckabee for no other reason, he says, than because Huckabee supports the national sales tax scheme known as the Fair Tax.

You may recall in September 2007 that Osama bin Laden released a video in which he called the U.S. tax system “insane” and bragged that, under Islamic law, Americans would not have to pay it.

Expect to see Huckabee/bin Laden ‘08 yard signs popping up in Winder any day now.

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Rush spent most of the program bashing Huckabee, like most conservative pundits have taken to doing.

— Peach Pundit commenter John Konop, posting the blog’s Iowa caucus open thread, notes the Republican punditocracy’s failure to drive a wedge between Huckabee and Republican voters.

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The stupid and superstitious have spoken – they said “Give us the televangelist. GIVE US THE HUCKLEBERRY!”

Yeehaw!

— Peach Pundit commenter GodHatesTrash in the same open thread.

If you haven’t guessed, Peach Pundit’s open thread on Iowa is great, great reading.

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee believes Earth is 6,000 years old and that gay sex was invented in 1968.

Such “moral clarity” is why he recently displaced actor Fred Thompson as the favorite presidential candidate of Georgia Republicans.

In other words, the only Republican more popular than the drawling, do-nothing actor is the aw-shucks know-nothing minister.

My fellow Georgians, this is what people are talking about when they call us bumpkins.

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Republican leaders and voters brag that they’re the party of national security.

The following excerpts come from the campaign Web page of Mike Huckabee, who is currently at or near the top of Republican Party presidential polls nationwide.

During the Cold War, we had hawks and doves, but this new war requires us to be a phoenix, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity.

Huckabee will deploy 50 percent more metaphors in the fight against terrorists.

We have to get tough with President Musharaff [sic] who has allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to have bases in Waziristan.

Huckabee refuses to spell Musharraf’s name correctly. You can’t get any tougher than that.

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.

Not only doesn’t Huckabee believe in evolution, he also believes that the moral of the phoenix legend is “learn from your mistakes.” Arkansas public schools are worse than I suspected.

We can accomplish a great deal, we can achieve tremendous bang for the buck, with swift, surgical air strikes and commando raids by our elite units, working with friendly governments, as we’ve done with the Ethiopians in Somalia.

I agree. We’ve certainly accomplished a “great deal” in Somalia this year.

Is President Musharaff of Pakistan for us 100%? No, since September 11, he’s been playing both ends in the middle to survive.

The expression is “both ends against the middle.”

We have to get tough with Mursharaff and re-calibrate the carrots and sticks we use with him.

Quick! Get the carrot calibrator!

We’re in a game of chicken with this military dictator.

Chicken and carrots? Delicious!

When I make foreign policy, I want to be able to treat Saudi Arabia the same way I treat Sweden, and that requires us to be energy independent. These folks have had us over a barrel – literally – for way too long.

Yes, let’s be energy independent, so we can treat a corrupt, brutal monarchy the same way we treat a peaceful, stable, generous, profoundly decent democracy. That’s good thinking, Huck.

And by the way, if you’re gonna let someone bend you over a barrel, at least the Saudis have plenty of lubricant.

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