It seems like an eternity, but it was only a few short years ago that Mike Huckabee was the darling of the media.
He was on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and maybe other shows, as well, but since I only watch Comedy Central and CNBC, I’ll have to leave it at those.
Just so you don’t think I’m too shallow, I do occasionally watch Access Hollywood, although I never have any clue as to who the celebrities they’re talking about actually are.
Unless they’re dead.
But back to Huckabee. Like so many others, before he became a serious contender, he was actually likeable. Smiling, affable, joking and guitar playing.
In fact, everytime I heard his name, I giggled a bit and had visions of an old favorite, Huckleberry Hound.
Why is it that everyone who’s really the antithesis of “cool” seems to play the guitar?
Maybe the real cool musical instrument is the accordian, after all.
Anyway, Huckabee then went through the classic John McCain transformation.
Then out came the other face. The creationism bit and some of the deeper seated beliefs forming the basis of his evangelistic faith.
Not that there’s anything wrong with faith, as long as it doesn’t trample my right to faith and personal freedom.Although I believe that life begins the moment the condom bursts, I don’t try to force those beliefs on others.
You’d think that would put us all on the same page.
But there’s probably a good reason to do an about face. It is just a necessarey evil to bring out the lunatics that vote in primaries, although some lunatics do stay at home and apparantly, never vote in primaries.
Well, that brings us to Donald Trump.
You see, Donald Trump just pulled a Huckabee, but not the old Huckabee. That’s still more accurately referred to as a John McCain.
No, Trump pulled the new Huckabee.
(Want to see the transformation again? Click here.)
This past Sunday night, the cynics among us saw Mike Huckabee announce what we all knew he would.
He announced that he would not be seeking the Presidency in 2012.
How could that be? How could you not seek the nomination when you came so close in 2008 and have no one of any real stature standing in fronty of you, other than the guy with the false religion that you gently backhanded a few years ago?
The reality is that even though Mike Huckabee used love of family and inner spiritual peace as his reasons for not going forward, we all knew that he wasn’t ready to give up his big, fat Fox News paycheck.
Once you’re shown the money, it’s hard to walk away. Forget about shepharding this Godless and adrift nation toward your vision of Heaven, them’s thar checks that’s needing cashin’.
So Huckabee really wasn’t a surprise, but what about The Donald?
I envision that someday his Wall Street Journal variety caricature will be adjacent to the definition of the expression “Peaked too Early”.
Trump’s reasons for not running? Why did he decide not to throw his hair into the ring? He’s being altruistic, Comcast and NBC need him to survive. He’s doing it for them and for all of the other business interests that license his name and need his help to be pulled out of their morass.
And think of all the celebrities that are being spared the embarrassment of picking up unemployable checks.
If there’s anyone that could pull something out of his ass better than The Donald, I can’t imagine. And besides, who could not only do the pulling, but then wear it on his head?
I worry about the effects of the Trump announcement on the upcoming jobless reports. No doubt there will be many more unemployed stand-up comics.
Have you ever tried to make a living telling Tim Pawlenty jokes?
There has to be some kind of a silver lining to Trump’s decision to drop out, besides the obvious gold lining, but unless someone pulls something very unexpected out of their butt, this promises to be a very boring upcoming Presidential election season.
That itself may be a wonderful gift.
Instead, wouldn’t it be nice, if instead everyday we had a new Osama Bin Laden killing story, or a new Dominique Strauss Kahn sodomizing story?
You’d never see an unemployed comedian then.
Here’s to high profile death and sodomy, but not in that order.
That would be truly sick.