October 2, 2015

After Shooting, Huckabee Slams Obama for “Liberal, Anti-Gun Agenda”

The former governor accuses the president of politicizing the issue, then politicizes it himself.

<a href=http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/GOP-2016-Huckabee/e3e4e52d4fe646cb85cb4ae99ae63e7e/2/0>Allison Carter</a>/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In an impassioned speech following Thursday’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, President Barack Obama predicted, “Somebody somewhere will comment and say, ‘Obama politicized this issue.'” It didn’t take long for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to prove him right.

On Thursday afternoon, Huckabee took to Twitter to express his condolences to the families of the victims. Unlike most of his fellow presidential hopefuls, Huckabee did not stop there. On Friday morning, he proceeded to criticize Obama for what Huckabee characterized as his “liberal, anti-gun agenda.”

Chicago, Obama’s hometown, has become a buzzword, often sloppily used, to indicate “black on black crime.” For Huckabee, the former governor of a state whose capital has the highest murder rate of any city with fewer than 200,000 residents (and a higher rate than Chicago’s), to invoke Chicago after a tragedy is as much of a politicization as anything. (Never mind that UCC wasn’t a gun-free zone, because it is impossible for public colleges in Oregon to ban guns.)

“This is something we should politicize,” Obama said on Thursday. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.” He just might not have chosen to politicize it the way Huckabee did.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the town where the shooting occurred and the time of day when Huckabee posted his first tweet.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate