President Bush was asked at a news conference today to comment on Governor Mike Huckabee's statements in a recent article addressing foreign policy, some of which were critical of the Bush administration.

The President did not take the political bait - choosing not to make comments during the primary season. Bush stressed that he is actively raising money for the Republican Party and will give his full support behind the nominee.  He also said he thought Republicans will keep the White House and gain in congressional and senate seats.

Governor Mike Huckabee released the following statemnt regardng Cuban foreign policy:

I am committed to being a staunch ally in the cause of a free and democratic Cuba, where Fidel Castro’s communist totalitarian dictatorship has oppressed the Cuban people for nearly five decades.

The United States must continue to lead the world in condemning the human rights abuses inflicted on the Cuban people and isolating Castro’s tyrannical regime both economically and diplomatically.

As President, I will oppose any efforts to lift trade and travel restrictions on the Cuban dictatorship and will veto any legislation seeking to lift these restrictions until three conditions are met:  scheduling of free, fair and internationally-supervised multi-party elections, freeing of all political prisoners, and legalization of all political activity and civil liberties.

For 48 years, Cuba’s communist dictatorship has been a destabilizing force in our hemisphere.  Fidel Castro has supported and promoted violent revolution as well as terrorist activity.  Cuba remains on the U.S. Department of State’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism.  Castro’s brand of tyranny is now evident in the dictatorial actions of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.  In sum, the demise of the Castro regime would be a welcomed development for our hemisphere and for the Cuban people. 

United States policy toward Cuba is clear.  The 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (Libertad Act) provides a road map for America’s goal of expediting a transition to democracy in Cuba and assisting the Cuban people in a post-Castro democratic transition.  As President, I will enforce and implement all provisions of U.S. law governing policy toward Cuba including the Libertad Act.  I will continue President Bush’s policy of pursuing indictments against any Cuban officials, including Raul Castro, responsible for crimes against U.S. citizens.  I will further support efforts to bring to justice any American fugitive criminals receiving safe haven in Cuba.  The Castro dictatorship is an outlaw regime.  As President, my administration will treat it as such.

This statement was released by the Mike Huckabee campaign today:

LITTLE ROCK, AR – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat leadership failed to support American troops fighting the Global War on Terrorism yesterday by passing a $515 billion omnibus spending bill that included funding for all Cabinet agencies, except the Department of Defense, and specifically did not include funding for the Iraq war.  The bill, passed in a hurry so Congress can go home for Christmas, allows spending to support our troops in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq.
 
“Last night, Speaker Pelosi and her fellow Democrats passed a spending bill that concealed a lump of coal for our troops serving overseas in Iraq,” former Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said. “Democrats are signaling that they are unhappy with the fact that our surge in Iraq is working. Violence is down. Order is being restored. And terrorists are learning they are not welcomed by the people of Iraq.”
 
The Senate is expected to add funding for the troops in Iraq in debate today.  “But why is the House leadership playing politics with funding for the war?” asked Huckabee.
 
Additionally, the spending bill, written by Democrats and passed 253-154 with mostly Democrat votes, undermines the 2006 Secure Fence Act. That act specifically required a two-tier barrier, like the one that has worked in California; the new version downgrades the provision to require only a single-tier barrier.  The Pelosi spending bill also eliminated the list of locations where the fence would be built.
 
“This serious reduction in security along our southern border was buried in a massive, 3,500-page bill. Nancy Pelosi hoped it would go unnoticed by the American people. Republican are serious about making our borders secure,” Huckabee said. “This effort to sneak one by the people is just another move in a continuing pattern Democrats have established to prevent resolving our illegal immigration crisis.”

A new article in the Baltimore Sun describes Mike Huckabee's recent foreign policy discussion as being closer to Ronald Reagan than George W. Bush.  Frank James points out that Huckabee is doing his level best to channel the spirit of President Ronald Reagan into his campaign.  The recent hiring of Ed Rollins as Huckabee's new national campaign manager is one example.  Rollins was the architect of the 1984 Reagan landslide presidential election of 49 of 50 states.

Huckabee created some headlines over the weekend when the text of his article in the January/February 2008 Foreign Affairs magazine was released.  His full comments can be read here in his article entitled "America's Priorities in the War on Terror: Islamists, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan."

Here is the beginning excerpt from Huckabeen's essay:

Huckabee actually sounds a lot like the Year 2000 version of George W. Bush. Remember, it was Bush, then styling himself as a compassionate conservative, who said during the 2000 presidential campaign that America needed a "humble" foreign policy.

Anyway, not long after that, Huckabee veers into what is assuredly Reagan territory, that he opposes the obscure Law of the Sea Treaty. 

Reagan opposed the treaty many conservatives disparagingly refer to as LOST as a threat to U.S. self-determination. By saying he was the first Republican presidential candidate to come out against the treaty, Huckabee is telling conservatives he was the first to see what Reagan saw, hoping that makes him more Reaganesque in their eyes than the other candidates.

This position on LOST actually puts Huckabee to the right of Bush since the president supports the treaty.

Here's another example of Huckabee trying to assume Reagan's mantle. He wants to increase military spending to Reagan-era levels when they were six percent of the gross domestic product versus 3.9 percent today. Again, this goes far beyond anything Bush has tried to achieve, even during a period when he was leading the nation's fight in two wars simultaneously.

Huckabee goes on to take a very Reaganesque view of the use of the U.S. military. He's opposed to nation-building. Bush was too, of course, until he got caught up in the neocon vision to remake Iraq as part of a new domino theory in which the nations of the greater Middle East would tumble towards democracy.

Huckabee writes:

And we must stop using active-duty forces for nation building and return to our policy of using other government agencies to build schools, hospitals, roads, sewage treatment plants, water filtration systems, electrical facilities, and legal and banking systems. We must marshal the goodwill, ingenuity, and power of our governmental and nongovernmental organizations in coordinating and implementing these essential nonmilitary functions.

 

 

 

 

Not that Huckabee disagrees with Bush on every particular. There's no discernible light between Huckabee's position on Iraq and Bush's. Here's a passage from Huckabee's essay that could have just as easily been lifted from a Bush speech:

As president, I will not withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq any faster than General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander there, recommends. I will bring our troops home based on the conditions on the ground, not the calendar on the wall. It is still too soon to reduce the U.S. counterterrorism mission and pass the torch of security to the Iraqis. If we do not preserve and expand population security, by maintaining the significant number of forces required, we risk losing all our hard-won gains. These are significant but tenuous.

 

 

 

 

 

Huckabee created some headlines over the weekend when the text of his article in the January/February 2008 Foreign Affairs magazine was released.  His full comments can be read here in his article entitled "America's Priorities in the War on Terror: Islamists, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan."