Mike Huckabee blasted the Washington Post after columnist Max Boot claimed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was not a coward because he evaded capture by committing suicide.
Boot, 50, wrote in a Monday column that “the assertion that Baghdadi died as a coward was, in any case, contradicted by the fact that rather than be captured, he blew himself up.”
The sentence brought immediate bipartisan condemnation to the Washington Post, who later issued a correction that read, “An earlier version of this column included a sentence questioning whether Trump was right to call Baghdadi a coward because he blew himself up. The line was removed because it unintentionally conveyed the impression that I considered Baghdadi courageous.”
The Washington Post also got into hot water after it changed the headline of Baghdadi’s obituary from calling him “terrorist-in-chief” to describing him as an “austere religious scholar.” The Post later changed it once more to refer to him as an “extremist leader” after backlash.
Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, went on Fox News and criticized the Post for its errors.
“The Washington Post is going to end up having a corrections and clarifications section that will be bigger than the rest of the paper,” Huckabee quipped. “Max Boot is a Trump hater. He has just been vicious, the man hates Trump so much that it’s a miracle he hasn’t blown a gasket over it.”
Huckabee said that Boot’s initial writing on Baghdadi’s death was “just stunning.”
“Of course Baghdadi is a coward. He took his children with him, ran into a tunnel, and then blew his own kids up. If that’s not cowardly, then there’s no definition of it,” he said.
The 64-year-old former governor also hit the paper over its coverage of President Trump.
“This is what we’re facing,” Huckabee said, “if Donald Trump runs into a burning building, rescues five children in his arms, and runs from the building, the Washington Post will say: ‘Donald Trump seen running from burning building while historic structure goes to ashes.’
“They will never mention that three children were saved in the process, this is insane, and the news media has shamed itself,” he added.
