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Transcript of today's show:
In a direct fire across the bow of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity, the presumed Democratic candidate for US president has clearly stated where he stands on the evolution-creationism controversy. In his first speech after winning the Democratic nomination, Senator Obama took this very public opportunity to remind voters that his administration will be renewing a commitment to science, as had Bill Clinton when he was president.
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Sound Off: What is being said about this story from around the blogging and opinion world.
A secret list of 20 potential running mates was revealed by presidential hopeful John McCain today. Mike Huckabee, who wants to revise the U. S. Constitution to reflect more Biblical values, could help increase McCain's appeal among cultural conservatives. But McCain has repeatedly praised Frederick Smith, CEO of Federal Express, as an excellent VP choice from the business sector.
[source: Associated Press]
Mike Huckabee, on the campaign trail in January:
"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."
Video clip of CNN report on Huckabee's above comment
comment posted at One News Now:
McCain should remember that a Christian serves God first - and that alone accounts for McCain's perception that he's "his own man." In other words, he won't bow to popular opinion but will stand by the commands of Jesus. [see complete story]
Sound Off: What is being said about this story from around the blogging and opinion world.
With McCain the Republican 2008 presidential candidate, the “Dream Team” may include Mike Huckabee as the vice-presidential nominee. Huckabee proved the strength of the evangelical vote by winning the first republican Iowa caucus & then stayed in the race long after big spender Mitt Romney bowed out. McCain-Huckabee vs. Clinton-Obama would be a presidential contest of Biblical proportions.
from The News & Observer:
Who will be Arizona Sen. John McCain's running mate? Party activists are more interested than usual in his pick for three reasons:* He needs to shore up support from conservatives, and the running mate is his best chance to do that;
* The vice presidential nominee could be first in line to win the presidential nomination the next time it's open;
* Given McCain's age -- he'd be 72 on Inauguration Day -- the presidency could come open sooner than eight years .
The most-discussed name right now is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Here are the pros and cons of Mr. Huckabee, according to conventional wisdom among the Republican party:Pro: He's shown his ability to win in the South and has support among evangelical Christians. A solid social conservative.
Con: He raised taxes as governor and supported equal benefits for the Arkansas children of illegal immigrants. Picking him might not excite conservatives.
from the blog A Lanson Boy:
Huckabee is becoming just too powerful a figure to ignore. Consider McCain's position. He is unpopular with the God brigade because he is perceived as weak on abortion and gay marriage. He doesn't play well in the South and he is viewed as weak on immigration. So the whole spectrum of the right are arrayed against him. As I said before, if Obama is the Democratic candidate then the GOP could face problems in traditional red states. McCain needs a good solid bible belt southerner to shore up his position. The trouble is that there just aren't that many credible candidates around. What Huckabee has going for him is that he hs proven he can win in these states and that he was brave enough to put his head above the parapet and compete. On Super Tuesday, Huckabee won 5 states and was second in a further 3. He is a force to be reckoned with even if he cannot win.
[read full blog post]from a commentary by Abe Greenwald, published at Commentary Magazine.com:
Since Mike Huckabee’s surprise showing on Tuesday, talk about a McCain - Huckabee ticket has neared the level of legitimate speculation. The thinking is that Huckabee victories in southern states like Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia, demonstrate the value of an Evangelical-friendly name on a GOP ticket.
When this idea was floated on Fox News Tuesday night, Karl Rove, in his new talking head role, dismissed it immediately—with good reason. Christianity Today reports that evangelical voters are now more concerned with national security than with social issues such as abortion. (Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Giuliani made that clear.) John McCain’s vision of the enemy as a threat to the American way of life is comfortably close to the Evangelical vision of jihad as a threat to Christianity. Somewhat shockingly, unlike some of the conservative media, Evangelicals can prioritize. John McCain has said many times (including, once, to me) that he’s looking for a strong national security vice president. He’d have an impossible time defending his choice of the man who didn’t know of the existence of the NIE on Iran. The compulsion to over-strategize in speculating about the McCain campaign has grown directly out of the Limbaugh-right’s insistence that McCain is embattled within the party. And in a national election, few evangelicals are going to pull the lever for Hillary or Obama over him. But if, after running almost entirely on national security, he hitched himself to a foreign policy ignoramus like Huckabee, he may first face detractors en masse.
[read complete article]
Last year at this time, we reported on Evolution Sunday -- an annual event that coincides with Darwin’s birthday that celebrates the compatibility of Evolution with Christianity. This year on Darwin‘s Birthday the presidential primaries are in full swing, and despite John McCain’s impressive delegate lead, Mike Huckabee is not giving up his fight to become the first confirmed Christian Creationist President.
MSNBC.com reporting on the McCain - Huckabee race:
Huckabee told reporters in Little Rock, Ark., that his close showing in Virginia proved that “there’s still a real sense in the Republican Party of a desire to have a choice.”
“We feel like if we’d had a few more days, maybe we could have closed the gap all the way,” he said.
Huckabee said he was the only “solid conservative, absolutely pro-life candidate” still in the race, and exit interviews in Virginia suggested that his message resonated. Huckabee got strong support from self-described conservatives, who made up nearly 7 in 10 voters in the Republican primary. Huckabee won half their votes.
In a surprising showing of weakness for McCain, independents, a group he has dominated, were about evenly divided. People calling themselves loyal Republicans, who have previously given McCain a slight edge, were also split down the middle.
White born-again and evangelical Christians, the keystone of Huckabee’s support all year, were favoring him by more than a 2-to-1 ration. McCain led heavily among the 6 in 10 Virginia voters who were not white born-again and evangelicals. Polls taken last week showed McCain with a double-digit lead over Huckabee, a Baptist minister, but Huckabee drew strong support in rural western Virginia, the state’s Bible belt. He appealed to Christian conservatives in Virginia, where he had the endorsement of Jerry Falwell Jr., the namesake son of the late television evangelist.
[read full story]
Sound Off: What is being said about this story from around the blogging and opinion world.
Transcript of today's show:
In stark contrast to Iowa Republican caucus winner Mike Huckabee, prominent republican Rudy Giuliani and independent Michael Bloomberg have publicly strongly affirmed their belief in evolutionary theory. Both agree that creationism devalues science and cheapens theology, while at the same time condemning students to an inferior education with less professional opportunities. Republican New Hampshire primary winner John McCain still seems to be playing to both sides of the controversy.
from the article, Evolutionary Politics, by Ronald Bailey
A larger question is whether a candidate's belief about the validity of evolutionary biology has anything to say about his or her ability to evaluate evidence. ….
Since science and technology policy issues are only going to become more important as the 21st century unfolds, we should all care how scientific knowledge informs a president's leadership. [read full story]
from a comment posted at the blog Gene Expression:
It doesn't matter what the candidates believe. What matters is whether the American people desire someone to parrot their beliefs back to them, and what those beliefs are.
Electing a Creationist won't cause people to become Creationists. It's a question of which groups will wield social and political dominance.
from a comment posted at the blog Capitol Hill Blue:
Why is evolution important to America? It is the future of repairing our medical problems and using every source of scientific research to find out why our American culture has turned into a violent culture. My own opinion is that forcing religion on a small child removes their critical thinking process. Instead of working themselves out of trouble they simply pray and hand their problems to the sky daddy. [read full blog post]
from a comment posted at the New York Times blog City Room:
I’m tired of all the praises on so-called “middle of the road” politicians or voters. You’re for the Iraq War or you’re not. You balance budgets or you don’t. You try to catch up in education to other countries, or fight to include creationism in school. You try to slow climate change (stopping seems out of the option already) or you try to make money before Earth melts. This is perhaps our last chance to restore American competitiveness - and global survival. Take a stance. It was all those “moderates” who put Bush in the office, voted us into Iraq, wrecked federal budget surpluses with billions of tax cuts to the super-rich, etc. etc. What have they wrought. [read full article and comments]
Today's show:
2007's first big story opened on Darwin's Birthday, February 11, with the release of the feature film documentary Flock of Dodos. In May, Ken Ham proudly placed baby dinosaurs in Noah's Ark at the Creation Museum, while a Turkish publisher spent millions FedExing the Atlas of Creation to European and American universities. Also in 2007 three presidential candidates went on the record that they don’t believe in evolution.
Sound Off: What is being said about this story from around the blogging and opinion world.
Transcript of today's show:
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee bristled when asked recently if creationism should be taught in public schools. Huckabee, one of 3 candidates who has confessed his disbelief in evolution, now asks why there is such fascination with his beliefs. He expressed frustration that he is asked about it so often, arguing with the questioner that it ultimately doesn't matter what his personal views are. "That's an irrelevant question to ask me - I'm happy to answer what I believe, but what I believe is not what's going to be taught in 50 different states," Huckabee said. "Education is a state function. The more state it is, and the less federal it is, the better off we are."
[source: Associated Press]
from an editorial by Daniel Finkelstein in the London Times:
Huckabee contends that it doesn't matter, because he is not intending to insist that schools stop teaching evolution. But that really isn't the point.
The reason that his support for intelligent design matters is that it is ridiculous. Who wants a President of the United States who doesn't accept the basic principles of science, taking refuge instead in a load of mumbo jumbo?
The religious beliefs of a President are a matter of conscience, but intelligent design is not a religious idea. It is, deliberately, put as an alternative scientific theory. But it is, sadly, nonsense.
It is clearly vital that he or she be someone who accepts and understands scientific methods. By rejecting evolution in favour of intelligent design Huckabee illustrates that he does not reach scientific conclusions based on evidence.
This is a serious downside in a President, whatever his other qualities.
from the blog Uncommon Ground:
Huckabee wants to avoid the issue, because “I'm not planning on writing the curriculum for an eighth grade science book.” He seems to think that it's irrelevant that his personal beliefs contradict an overwhelming body of scientific evidence. And don't think he can escape by arguing that he's a theistic evolutionist, a la Mitt Romney. He clearly doesn't accept the idea of common descent. He clearly doesn't understand that he shares a common ancestor with chimps and gorillas (and fruit flies and fungus and sunflowers, for that matter). It is dangerous to have someone so resistant to evidence and reason as President of the United States. [read full blog post]related news story, Huckabee Declines Theology Discussion, published December 7, 2007 by the AP:
Republican presidential candidate and Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee says he won't discuss "intricate, nit-picky things of church doctrine," such as the role of women in the ministry, because the issues aren't relevant to the presidency.
The former Arkansas governor said that while he's open to discussing the basic pillars of his faith - and praised rival Mitt Romney for opening up in a speech Thursday about his - he won't voice his views on the often-discussed controversies in Southern Baptist denominations.
"I think (discussing faith) is an important part of helping people get to know the candidates," Huckabee said Friday morning after a breakfast fundraiser in Charlotte. "(But) sometimes the questions get a little laborious when they start asking you about intricate, nit-picky things of church doctrine that's probably not all that relevant to being president."
As in his decision not to discuss his views on the creation of the earth, Huckabee passed on a chance Thursday night explain his views on whether women should be able to serve in pastoral leadership roles.
"It's so irrelevant to being president that I wouldn't even get into that," Huckabee said before meeting with about 350 supporters in Greensboro, N.C. "Churches have different views on that and my personal views are completely immaterial as it would relate to being president." [read complete article]
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