After enduring a week of criticism for his statement in Foreign Affairs magazine that the Bush administration’s foreign policy was both unilateral and arrogant, Gov. Mike Huckabee took to CNN’s “The Situation Room” to both explain and defend his remarks. (Although she did not mention Huckabee specifically, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said earlier today that “the idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous.”)
Referring to his remarks, Huckabee told CNN’s John King that, “I can’t write it again. They’re already out — you know, this cow is out of the barn. So would I do it again differently? I don’t know. It reflects what I was trying to communicate. And, again, I think, sometimes, we’re so afraid that we’re going to offend somebody that we don’t take a stand. I think America is looking for a leader that takes a stand and is not so afraid of, oh, is somebody not going to like what I say?”
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“They’re strong words,” said Huckabee. “But this is a strong issue. And we need to talk about the fact that youhave many members of Congress, you have members within the military community and the intelligence community, all who have said that there has not been a wider circle of involvement in terms of helping determine exactly what our goals would look like and where we would go, and making sure that we had a clear definition of what it would take in terms of military resources to accomplish our goals there.”
Huckabee continued to defend his statement, despite the scrutiny he’s endured from his own party. “I think that’s what leadership is about,” said Huckabee. “It’s taking a stand. People don’t have to agree with it. I’m fine that people don’t always agree with what stand I take. I think that’s when you start welcoming the dialogue and the discussion that ought to come. It’s when we don’t have the dialogue and when we don’t take stands that the country suffers.”
Huckabee also used the occasion to push back against Republican candidate Gov. Mitt Romney, who called on Huckabee to apologize for his remarks. “My pretty solid assumption is, he has not read the article,” Huckabee told King. “Someone should ask him, did he read the article before he made
the comments? If not, then I think it shows a lack of preparation on his part to make comments about something that he’s not familiar with.”
The former Arkansas governor also suggested that his statement was in keeping with the majority of Americans. “I talk about issues that people care about who are sitting around their kitchen table,” he said. “It’s not just the cookie-cutter Republican issues of, we’re going to cut taxes; we’re going to lower
spending.”
