Perhaps when this photograph was taken, Mike Huckabee was looking into his future, that awful day, May 16, 2008, when he would make that awful “joke” about someone aiming a gun at Barack Obama, and the NRA would probably wish they’d never invited this awful “advocate.”

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Obama supports extending the assault weapons ban, limits on gun sales, and a national law against carrying concealed weapons, with exceptions for retired police and military personnel.

Source: Huckabee jokes about Obama ducking a gunman

It’s not the first such Huckabee “joke” ….

• For Assassination Joke, Huckabee Should Be Off TV
• Huckabee Jokes About Shooting Romney: Did MSM Duck?

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Via: Right Pundits - Huckabee: Obama Gun Joke

Video: Huckabee’s Obama Gun “Joke” at the NRA Convention

With all the Internet buzz about Neville Chamberlain, you’d think someone had unearthed footage of a Neville Chamberlain meltdown. Far worse than that, the long deceased Neville Chamberlain, was not only photographed with Hitler, but the then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain conceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler via the Munich Agreement in 1938-39. Thus he became the poster child of appeasement and he created a sound bite, “peace for our time” before sound bites were called sound bites.

President Bush evoked this unpleasant history when he drew the parallels with the unnamed “some” ……

The president did not name Obama or any other Democrat, but White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party. Former President Jimmy Carter has called for talks with Hamas.

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said at Israel’s 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish Americans. Those doubts were earlier stoked by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2008 presidential election, when he recently charged that Obama is the favored candidate of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which the U.S. government has listed as a terrorist group.

Obama last week called the Hamas allegation a “smear” and lashed out Thursday at Bush’s speech in Israel.

Source: Bush suggests Obama wants ‘appeasement’ of terrorists

See also:

• Bush On Political Attack: Suggests Obama And Democrats Seek “Appeasement” Of Terrorists (UPDATED)
• Obama, sweetie, calm down
• Clinton Criticizes Bush Over ‘Appeasement’ Remark
• Biden: Bush’s comments were ‘bullshit’

Defense of Bush’s appeasement remarks is more complicated if a person (A) contradicts own previous statements on “negotiating” with “terrorists” or (B) does not know who Neville Chamberlain is.

Let’s take (A) which concerns John McCain.

Shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections two years ago, John McCain told a British news program that the U.S. should recognize Hamas as a legitimate governing authority:

They’re the government and sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with them. … It’s a new reality in the Middle East and I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, then they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.

Today, barely two years after embracing an open attitude towards Hamas, John McCain says that he will be their “worst nightmare.” McCain’s reversal would have been stunning on its own, but the reason for his hypocrisy is truly appalling: McCain flip-flopped on Hamas to smear Barack Obama.

Source: John McCain Flip-Flopped on Hamas to Smear Barack Obama

Watch the John McCain Hamas flip flop:

Let’s take (B) the “clueless talk show host” of our headline.

Well, this might have been his finest hour. Chris Matthews I mean, confronting Kevin James in the presence of Mark Green on tonight’s Hardball. The topic: what it means to compare appeasement, meaning Nazis and Neville Chamberlain in 1938-39–that exhausted neo-con trope–to our current situation vis-à-vis Iran and etc. The exchange was pegged to Bush’s political exploitation of Israel’s 60th anniversary.

This moment was not sublime just because of what Chris said–though that was plenty good. It was sublime because of the spur of the moment directorial judgment he made as Kevin began to rant. He decided to give this moron a great sweep of precious air time, not just seconds–he gave him minutes. Unprecedented media roominess descended on this sound-bite fool as he tried to bluster his way out his self-constructed trap. Chris just kept repeating a simple question–what did Neville Chamberlain actually do that constituted appeasement back in 1938-39? He just kept repeating that question.

Source: A Sublime Moment For Cable TV–Chris Matthews interviewing Kevin James On Appeasement.

Must be seen. It is hilarious.

That’s the history lesson for today.

Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement, Bush, McCain, Obama, Clueless Talk Show Hosts

What’s in a word? Plenty, Barack Obama has learned in this campaign. Don’t call Pennsylvania voters “bitter” and don’t call female reporters “sweetie.” Dare we say it’s been a bittersweet lesson?

Back in Pennsylvania in early April, Senator Barack Obama took some heat for calling a female factory worker “sweetie,” in Allentown.

He did it again today at a Chrysler Plant in Sterling Heights, asking a reporter to “hold on one second there sweetie” when she asked, “How are you going to help the American auto workers?”

He said he would address it at what was then an expected media availability — not soon enough.

“This sweetie never did get an answer to the question,’’ the reporter told her viewers on the local channel 7.

Source: “Obama: Hold On, Sweetie,”

Peggy Agar did get her apology. It was a voicemail apology some hours later.

Obama apologized in a voicemail he left on Agar’s cell phone at 3:16 p.m:

“Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I’m calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn’t get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren’t the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.

“Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next.”

Source: Obama Apologizes to WXYZ Reporter (Visit the Web site to hear the voicemail apology.)

See also: WXYZ - Peggy Agar Talks About Obama Apology (Video Interview)

We wonder how long it will be before Obama sweetie T-shirts will be available. (And the Obama sweetie mash-ups and remixes.)

As for the original April “sweetie” incident:

If the media truly are not more gender than race biased, then Barack Obama’s remarks on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania this week should get as much coverage as Hillary Clinton’s remark about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson.

While flirting with female factory workers in Allentown, he called one “sweetie,” a paternalistic way to address a woman if there ever was one. It might have worked had he been trying to do his best imitation of Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine, the telephone operator, but this was no spoof. This was Obama trying to relate to working-class women in a way that went directly south.

Source: Obama’s “Sweetie” Problem

Obama playing pool in West Virginia. As with politics, a game of strategy.

Regarding the April “Sweetie” incident see also

• Obama Pool Report from Allentown, Pennsylvania

See also:

• Obama to Reporter: Sorry I Called You “Sweetie”
• Video: Obama annoys reporter by calling her “sweetie”; Update: Obama apologizes
• Outside the Beltway: Sweetie-gate

That’s the word on Obama Goes from “Bitter” to “Sweetie.” Apologizes.