Huckabee Won't "Recant" His Call For AIDS Quarantine

This morning on Fox News Sunday, former governor Mike Huckabee acknowledged that he previously advocated quarantining AIDS patients, but said he would not "recant" from that position.

In 1992, Huckabee wrote, "If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague."

This morning, Huckabee first tried to deny his comments. "Chris, I didn't say that we should quarantine," he said. In fact, he said we "need[ed]" to isolate AIDS patients.

Pressed repeatedly by host Chris Wallace, however, Huckabee relented. "That is exactly what I said. I don't run from it, I don't recant from it. Would I say it a little differently today? Sure, in light of 15 years of additional knowledge and understanding, I would."

Watch the video from Fox News Sunday:

Comments

[samguy]

03:15 PM on 12/10/2007

Huckabee is the typical stupid right wing evangelical, with statements like this and the one from '98 that we need to return the "nation to Christ."

What happened to all the clergy on the left from the 60's and 70's that fought for Civil Rights and against Viet Nam.

Huckabee comes off as warm fuzzies, but it's just neocon nastiness as usual.

[BigBagel]

01:15 PM on 12/10/2007

What I find strange about his sudden rise is a lot of conservatives are trying to deep six his candidacy. They seem to dislike him as much as liberals.

[GoodwithWood]

11:31 AM on 12/10/2007

Lets round up all people with the deadly infectious christian virus. Especially the ones who go door to door purposely trying to spread the illness.

[eyecon]

11:11 AM on 12/10/2007

He claims to have had a gay friend die of AIDS. That was only after he made the "innocent victim" slip; mentioning a friend who died of AIDS contracted from a transfusion. This homophobic schmuck actually wants us to believe that he has, or had, gay friends. I'll add that to the numerous DuMond lies.

TRUTH does not seem to be a value embraced by those seeking the support of so-called values voters. Misogyny and gay bashing are plentiful. Veracity is in very short supply.

[hannitizer]

10:15 AM on 12/10/2007

Huckleberry Bibleboy cast thy moral net
Slyly coax the not-so sheepish ones
With your Mega-church/intelligent designer crusade
Hellfire, pro-wrestlin' style

Lure the pseudo-righteous train them to serve
Round up the wicked, the sick and afflicted
Walker, Texas Ranger modus operandi
Devolution's living proof incarcerated

[Qbear]

10:03 AM on 12/10/2007

I can't believe the KNUCKLE DRAGGERS for Huckabee (MOTHER-HUCKER) will be able to stand upright, or manage a voting machine without opposable thumbs.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/chucklesAIDS.jpg

[negogato]

08:57 AM on 12/10/2007

There was no quarantine for polo victims as Gov Huckabee well knows from his own life experience.
The Governor has no need to study or to read a book; only to remember. Polo was incurable, mysterious and terrifying to the public and went on for years. His claim that for people with Aids there was for the first time in our history no discussion about a quarantine is false and he knows it. He chose a military response – a round up and incarceration.

He does not believe in evolution – the basis of biology and medicine - and yet wants to be a decider on treatment of disease.

He chose a military response – a round up and incarceration – the wrong response for a medical problem that is not, and was known not to be contagious in casual contact. Unlike polo which was treated and cured with Science.

Science is proven not believed. And this decider has no use for it; except where it can be shill and a front for his faith based bias.

Holy Joe Huckabee.

If I could pass a message to America it would be:

Pay attention and you will not be surprised. Again.

[kfdan]

08:50 AM on 12/10/2007

Slippery Huckabee ~ the point being suggesting HIV patient incarceration even 10 to 15 years ago was a very fascist policy statement! Was then ~ is now!

[RushLimbaughsPutz]

08:40 AM on 12/10/2007

Next we can put Libs and Phony Americans into camps, too. Got any dope? Rush L

[lastams]

08:34 AM on 12/10/2007

Here’s the basic Republican spin.
We are in a world war with something called Islamic Facism.
Our biggest enemy is Al Qaeda who has decided to fight freedom in Iraq.
In Iraq we are supporting a fledgling democracy fighting Al Qaeda and Iran, whom we need to attack for thinking about building an atomic bomb.
While we are fighting this war, we need to give up our freedoms to protect our freedoms,torture our enemies, spy on our own citizens, establish a unitary executive, shroud in secrecy anything and everything under executive privilege, and subvert our election process for our own good.
The greatest threat to America is Moveon.org, and the combination of Islamic fascists, aids infected homosexuals, and illegal Mexicans who together will make our women wear burkas and enforce a diet heavy on tofu, rice and beans.

This is reality as disseminated under the Neocon agenda, and all the Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul, have signed on for the ride.
Those among us who don’t live in the Fox bubble, who realize that at the end of the day the 12billion a month spent in Iraq is going to the same “Islamic Fascists” whom we are supposedly fighting, that the “foreign influence” in Iraq comes more from Saudi Arabia than Iran, and that this world war is a thinly disguised vehicle for a change of government, are looking for a leader, of either party, willing to deal with reality and give us a bit of straight talk.
Huckabee may have a soothing manner and play the guitar, but at the end of the day he is shoveling the same shit that the Neocons have been selling for seven years.

[HurryUp1212009]

08:00 AM on 12/10/2007

DIDN'T
THE
NAZIS
QUARANTINE
PEOPLE
WITH
ILLNESSES
OF
WHICH
THE
REICH
DIDN'T
APPROVE???

I KEEP TELLING YOU, REPUBLICANS - LIKE HUCKABEE - ARE NEO-NAZIS.

AND, IF YOU READ UP ON NAZIISM, YOU'LL SEE IT USED PEOPLE'S PATRIOTISM AND FEAR TO GAIN POWER. SOUND FAMILIAR?

[rcampbell]

07:59 AM on 12/10/2007

Huckabee said

"Would I say it a little differently today? Sure, in light of 15 years of additional knowledge and understanding, I would."

During the interview, Huckabee also stated that he lost a friend to AIDS. This is a classic example of conservative flip-flopping. Why should he be forgiven for being so very wrong on this, or any other issue, and require "...15 years of additional knowledge and understanding..." to arrive at the same place any truly caring individual was from the beginning?

Giuliani's and Romney's many flip-flops went the other way, but end in the same quandry. Doesn't this reflect on their ability to make good decisions, to analyze information and make intelligent judgements? In the cases of these two, however, the level of outright pandering to the conservative base is nauseating.

Why is it that conservatives so often strongly oppose something that is in the best interest of the American people only to change their position when it suddenly directly affects them or their families? I also think of Sen. Jesse Helms' and Sen. Orrin Hatch's reversal on stem cell research only after members of their families were struck by Parkinson's Disease or other serious malady that could be aided by stem cells.

That's not to say that liberals have never changed a position, but the conservative flip often takes this form.

[Bongborg]

06:14 AM on 12/10/2007

When he called for quarantine concentration camps back then, he showed what he is. If he gets the chance to really establish the camps, it won't be just AIDS patients in them...

[chendri887]

03:47 AM on 12/10/2007

"Governor" Hucksterabee is either much scarier than I thought, or extremely misinformed. Even "way back in 1992," (he makes it sound so long ago), doctors agreed that HIV was impossible to pass along via any informal-contact based means. Sexually, it is the least contagious STD, taking multiple contacts with an infected partner for even the chance of infection to occur. Using the Huckster's logic, we might as well just quarantine people with any blood-borne infectious viral disease. I suppose Huck would fixate on anything related to sex though, as that seems to be a special obsession of Christian fundamentalists.

[ThreeCentsWorth]

01:53 AM on 12/10/2007

How can anyone be surprised? What you see is what you get with this guy. Can the neo-cons and Evangelicals really believe this junk? It's so pitiful. Hope, at least, that poll numbers will start going down for him as people learn what a hater he is.