Atrios is right, this is pretty amusing:
“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.
Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.
In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.
“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.
If Aleya had been keeping up with blogs, she would have been less surprised at Huckabee’s reading level.
At least it wasn’t Jack Chick comics…
For a moment, I thought she was citing H.A. Rey ….
I always thought it would be helpful to ship thousands of copies of the Dr. Seuss book about the star bellied sneetches to the Palestinians, so that they would learn to get along.
Attn: politicians: kids aren’t stupid.
Attn: kids: politicians, far too often, are.
Bush’s reading level didn’t prevent him from getting elected. It was probably still higher than the general population. Let’s face it, “President Huckabee” is one scary phrase. I’m already looking around for various countries to move to – just in case.
Aleya Deatsch, 7
“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.
Hey, this kid is smart! And, she seems not to be an atheist…
I enjoyed C. S. Lewis as a kid even though I was an atheist. You don’t need to believe in fairy tales to enjoy them.
This remark by Huckabee is also pretty amusing:
Absolutely, though in the case of C.S. Lewis it definitely helps to be a kid. I tried re-reading him as an adult and found the prose eye-wateringly bad.
Still, maybe I have Lewis to thank for just how much I enjoy gorging on Turkish Delight …
Pingback: It’s not just in India
In politics, appearing stupid is a major political advantage as has been demonstrated repeatedly. People forget that Bush lost his first election because people thought he was too intellectual. He subsequently readjusted his style to appeal to a different more widespread set of voters and the results are before us. Kerry was repeatedly hammered on for being too intellectual. The same reason is why Gore is unelectable.
OK, sure, that’s why I said “seems” and of course I was making a gentle tweak – but I was thinking, maybe she meant the non-fiction, or the religious pseudo-fiction. (But reading any of his work at seven y.o. is great, in a nation where many fifth graders read at third grade level or below.) In any case, please don’t be sloppy cocktail party philosophers and confuse the “fairy tales” of specific sectarian notions with the deep issues of why is there anything at all, what if any is a necessary being versus being contingent, etc.
“we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade”
I want my politicians to be fairly ambitious, but there is a limit.
I read the C.S. Lewis science fiction trilogy as an adult. I found “Out of the Silent Planet” an engrossing and positive story. Then I read “Preleranda” and I found something disturbing about it which I couldn’t quite put a finger on even though I new the work from a radio production of Donald Swann’s opera version.
Finally I read “That Hideous Strength”, and I found a profoundly immoral, anti-human and ultimately evil book. It is obviously the product of a deranged personality with a hate for people in general which showed his own extreme personal grudges, for instance in the portrayal of a character who was clearly based on H.G. Wells.
However I think it shows the deep peronality difference between an atheist humanist like myself and a certain sort of dangerous religious reactionary like Lewis.
Now the Golden Compass trilogy, that’s a good read for adult as well as for children with lots of thought provoking ideas.
Really??? Dr Seuss??? In this photo-opped, sound-bitten world, the best he could come up with was Dr freakin Seuss???? Even Bush could stroke the lapping heads, and skritch the earlobes, of his xTian base, with that most idiotic bit about Jesus being his favorite philosopher (must have really pissed off the Randians that time). The Huck couldn’t suggest that his most favorite of all authors is that one dude, that wrote that one book, he loves more than any other book–the bible?????
Farhat sees the depressing truth. Bush’s fundamental appeal has always been his ignorance. You will recall his 2001 commencement speech in which he boasted:
“To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students–I say, you, too, can be President of the United States. A Yale degree is worth a lot, as I often remind Dick Cheney–who studied here, but left a little early. So now we know–if you graduate from Yale, you become President. If you drop out, you get to be Vice President.”
His message to a largely ignorant U.S. population is that ignorance is okay. He makes people feel good about their ignorance, and he gives them his blessing to remain forever ignorant. He boasts of not reading books or even newspapers, and that he receives his insights from God or from his gut. Those who counsel thinking or investigating before acting are depicted as weaklings and useless eggheads.
I read recently that there are 194 million adults in the U.S. Of these, 44 million are completely illiterate, and another 50 million can read at no better than an 8th grade level. These are the people that politicians must persuade.
Through its stultifying schools, which teach only ready made and shallow values that students repeat by rote, and through its relentless television propaganda, the government insures that the population will remain ignorant.
Don’t get me started on the churches.
Rather smart girl that she’s seven years old and already reading chapter books like those of CS Lewis!
Does anyone remember being surprised when it came out that Bush was reading Albert Camus?
I always thougt Camus was overrated. If I needed a comfirmation, this was it.
Or maybe even a CONFIRMATION. See? Our childrens are learning.
David, it “coming out” about Bush could have really been almost anything. That machine manipulates the media and its image so much.
If he’s elected, he gets the secret service agent with the briefcase and the Big Red Button, right? That’s one way to end energy consumption. Just start WWIII — the old school, Cold War version.
For a guy who is running on Christian identity politics, I think it’s amazing that no reporter has yet asked him (as far as I know), if he’s a dominionist, and if he believes in the Rapture. Is that supposed to be an off-limits question, like Mitt’s holy underwear?
Funny 🙂
But, to be honest, understandable. It’s not at all surprising then when asked by a child for your favorite author, that a person might think the natural response would be a children’s author, one that the child is likely to recognize. Perhaps this statement, then, says more about Huckabee’s low opinion of child intelligence, or low achievement in his own childhood years (since we often judge others by looking at ourselves).
I love Dr. Seuss – he is so very practical – The Zax – Too many Daves -(try memorizing all those names) and the – the story with – Oh I dont like this bed at all so many things have come to call – (who has not had that problem?) and – What was I scared of ? (the pale green pants with nobody inside them.)
chemicalscum, you’re showing your prejudice.
C.S. Lewis was an atheist who converted because one day he asked himself why he felt something was unjust. He was no reactionary. He may have had a personal disagreement with Mr. Wells, but that’s called something else.
Perelandra is a retread of the Genesis Adam and Eve myth, with an added Earth human to chase off the Serpent. It’s kinda weird, to say the least.
And it’s the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, and the first book is “Northern Lights”! Damn it all to shit, I’m going to invent a time machine solely to bitchslap that publisher and make them use the right name.
Under the heading Follow Huckabee’s Money, Brink Lindsey writes:
I read in Robert Novak’s column this morning that Mike Huckabee held a fundraiser earlier this week at the Houston home of Dr. Steven Hotze. As Novak notes, Hotze is “a leader in the highly conservative Christian Reconstruction movement.”
Christian Reconstructionists, for those unfamiliar with the term, are Religious Right radicals who believe that America, and the rest of the world besides, should be governed in accordance with strict Biblical law. And yes, that includes stoning adulterers. Here’s a snippet from “A Manifesto for the Christian Church,” a 1986 document from an outfit called the Coalition on Revival that was signed by, among others, Steven Hotze:
Meanwhile, Novak reports that among the members of the fundraiser’s host committee was Baptist minister Rick Scarborough. The founder of Vision America and a self-described “Christocrat,” Scarborough made news earlier this year when he argued that the HPV vaccine improperly interferes with God’s punishment of sexual license.
Just when you thought the Huckabee campaign couldn’t get any creepier….
I’ll bet that the “Christian Reconstructionists” and others of similar persuasion secretly admire the Taliban for their conviction and methods.
When I first heard about Huckabee appearing on TV with the cross, my first thought was of the swastika.