Thursday, December 20, 2007

Huckabee's Thin Skinned Temper Tantrum

Leaked letters show Huckabee sniping at critical reporter

12/20/2007 @ 10:43 am

Filed by John Byrne of Raw Story
The former editor of the alternative Arkansas weekly Arkansas Times Max Brantley has released copies of letters he received from Mike Huckabee, the state's former governor and lieutenant governor, in which the future Republican presidential candidate snipes at him for what he considered overzealous coverage.

The letters, released to The New Republic, show a Huckabee meticulous in responding to his critic's attacks.

"In a series of unpublished private letters dating to the mid-'90s that Huckabee faxed to Brantley, a surprising--and furious--side of the former governor comes through," writes the magazine's Gabriel Sherman. "The four letters, which Brantley provided to The New Republic, are multi-page, rambling, and highly personal attacks that Huckabee wrote while in Arkansas office. In them, he excoriates the journalist, referring to the Arkansas Times as 'a local version of the National Enquirer,' a 'collection of carping columnists,' a 'newsletter for the Democrats,' an "irrelevant irritant; and the 'Theater of the Absurd,' among other sobriquets."

"I was just astounded at how vindictive he was," Joan Duffy, a reporter who covered Huckabee for a Memphis paper in the 1990s told Sherman. "He took it all so personally. . . . You're either with him, or you're a mortal enemy."

In response to a Brantley Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all of the then-lieutenant governor's public documents in 1995 while he was on vacation, Huckabee replied: "If you have singled out the only Republican among constitutional officers for this special 'honor,' then you've really disguised your intentions about as effectively as trying to hide Dolly Parton in a 32AA bra."


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