June 21, 2015

Former Arkansas governor, turned Fox host, turned 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was asked about his defense of the Confederate flag flying in South Carolina on this Sunday's Meet the Press, and whether the shooting incident in Charleston this week has made him change his mind on the issue by host Chuck Todd.

Huckabee decided to do his best to deflect whether there's any racism in South Carolina at all rather than directly answer the question. How can South Carolina possibly racist when they elected that Indian woman as governor and a black guy to the U.S. Senate?

HUCKABEE: We're asking is South Carolina is a racist state because of a flag that flies on their capitol grounds. Here's what I can tell you as a frequent visitor to South Carolina. This is a state that's largely white people that elected a female governor of Indian descent and the first ever African American to the United States senator from the south. They have more diversity in the people that they have elected to statewide office than New York, Connecticut of Massachusetts.

There's 4.8 million people in South Carolina. I don't think you could say that the presence of one lunatic racist, who everybody in this country feels contempt for and no one is defending is somehow evidence of the people of South Carolina.

And of course he couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a shot at all those protesting "thugs" that haven't behaved as well as these good, God-fearing South Carolinians who have learned how to turn the other cheek.

HUCKABEE: I think we've seen the people of South Carolina and their character by what you saw in Charleston and people of all races, Democrats, Republicans from every perspective hugging, praying. Nobody was burning down their community, they weren't breaking windows. They weren't beating up on cops. They were exhibiting a true Christian spirit that really is I think exemplary to the rest of the country.

Huckabee also doesn't believe that Republican presidential candidates should have to be worrying their pretty heads about issues like this one: Mike Huckabee: South Carolina’s Confederate Flag Is ‘Not An Issue’:

Amid widespread calls to take down the Confederate flag that flies outside the South Carolina statehouse, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning that he does not think presidential candidates should talk about it.

“I still think it’s not an issue for a person running for president,” Huckabee said. “Everyone’s being baited with this question as if somehow that has anything to do whatsoever with running for president.”

The flag has come to attention recently, after a white gunman shot and killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, last week. Pictures posted online show the alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, posing with a gun and a Confederate flag. The flag is widely considered a symbol of racism.

“I don’t think [the American people] want us to weigh in on every little issue in all 50 states that might be an important issue to the people of that state but not on the desk of the president,” Huckabee said.

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