Catholic Deacon Slams Thompson's Attacks on Huckabee

A pretty hard hitting Commentary from Catholic Online I discovered. I did not intend to do another Huckabee post. However I think this is significant in light of the recent debate in South Carolina.

If I had read this article earlier this morning I would have incorporated it in my post Rod Dreher Endorses Huckabee!!!! Maybe Catholics Should Too . It appears this good Catholic Deacon agrees with me 100 percent on some of my sentiments.

The full article can be found here at SPECIAL COMMENTARY: Thompson attacks Huckabee, using the “L” Word. I shall excerpt the part that deals with Governor Huckabee.

Before I do so note the following.

First the acknowledgement that Governors Huckabee's views seem to fit within the Catholic Social Justice ethic. Of course there are some exceptions. I doubt this Deacon agrees with Gov Huckabee's stance on the Death Penalty.
Second, I thought it was very interesting that he comments on what I has been bothering me so much. That there seems to be a anti Catholic no nothing party like going on attack but in this case used on Evangelicals. This bothers me greatly. It bothers me because it is Un Christian. It bothers me because it is bad politics. It bothers me because to allow it to happen will mean it might come back on us as Catholics one day.
Third-I really like what he has to say about "labels" and name calling. I agree enough is enough. To call Huckabee a liberal is insane. To call McCain a liberal is insane. However for the past few years segments of the Republican party have thrown that word out on the most conservative of Republicans in the most reckless way. People at times with 100 percent American Conservative ratings.

I suppose that is fine if you get your Conservatism from what Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or Hotair or Ann Coulter, or whoever is on Talk Radio that day. Now I agree with these people more often than not. However when I hear their use of the word liberal applied to every Tom, Dick , or Harry, that might have a opposite view from them on such a wide range of topics as immigration reform to my goodness such topics as the "gang of 14" I just roll my eyes.

Anyway here is the excerpt
Senator Thompson accused Governor Huckabee of being a “liberal” on economic policies. Yes, he used the “L” word. Here is the real story of this recent debate.

With all of these candidates trying to claim that they carry something of the mantle of the last truly popular Republican President, Ronald Reagan, Governor Huckabee dug down even deeper to explain his claim.

He reminded the listeners that Ronald Reagan brought together a coalition which included, for example, single mothers who struggled to make ends meet. In other words, Ronald Reagan, like him, was a populist. Reagan had managed to open the Party once perceived as the haven of the affluent to a cross section of all Americans.

In the interest of full disclosure I must admit, I am one of the people to which the Governor referred. I was born into a lower “middle class” family from the inner City of Boston. We were, as a family, ‘blue collar’ Democrats. Yet, I was brought into the Republican Party by the positions and the appeal of Ronald Reagan. Most importantly, it was because Reagan heard the cry of the ones whom Mother Teresa called the “poorest of the poor”, children in the womb.

When my own Party decided to stop their ears to the cry of these children, as a concession to the new “liberals” who tout license as liberty, I began to question whether I could remain. Then, when they censored the last champion of both the poor and the working men and women in the Democratic Party, Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, by not allowing him to even speak at their convention, I knew what I had to do.

I am one of those folks to whom the “Gipper” regularly referred, a Democrat who did not so much leave my former party but experienced the Democratic Party as having left me.

Not only did Senator Thompson try to derail Governor Huckabees momentum by questioning his ‘conservatism” and then deriding his populism, but the questions which followed from the panel concerning his religious convictions were astonishing. Huckabee is regularly marginalized by commentators as the candidate of the “Evangelicals”. His response to their borderline religious bigotry during this recent debate was excellent.

Noting that religion is always “off limits” until it comes to his candidacy, he addressed the issue squarely. Without denying his deeply held religious convictions, he spoke of a growing coalition gathering around his campaign and assured the viewers throughout America that he was running to be the President of all Americans.

Then, one of the panel members from Fox News dragged out an old comment he made when he was a Baptist preacher concerning the relationship between husband and wife in a Christian marriage, using it to attempt to reflect upon him negatively. He took full advantage of that invitation as well. First he referred to his own marriage without any hesitation, revealing his transparency. Then, he gave a wonderful exposition on the importance of marriage as a “100%/100%” partnership and the place where we learn to love. It was not only good theology but excellent policy and politics

So, the affable candidate from Hope Arkansas not only answered Senator Thompson’s attacks, but with a good humor and great verbal skill, he came out the victor in the exchange. Huckabees religious support extends way beyond Evangelical Protestants. For example, he has a growing base of Catholic support. He also draws people from across economic and even party lines.

His message is that of a populist, not unlike Democratic candidates John Edwards and Senator Barak Obama. The HUGE difference, among several, is that Huckabee hears the cry of the poorest of the poor, children in the first home of the whole human race, their mothers womb.Neither of the two Democrats do. Whether he takes the Republican nomination or not, Mike Huckabee may be the emerging leader of a new issue focused alliance of voters. These folks are not capable of being pigeon holed. They are quite capable of exercising their prudential judgment, placing the multitude of political, economic, social and policy issues which form the backdrop for this campaign, within a hierarchy of importance.

These voters cannot be lumped under the assorted vacuous verbal political labels used by the media such as “religious right”, “conservative”, “right wing” or “neo-conservative”. Oh, do not get me wrong, these folks also do not fit the contemporary American use of the word “liberal” either. Huckabee uses a phrase,” Vertical politics” to explain his message and his direction. He speaks of calling Americans beyond the old horizontal labels to a higher ground and a better future.

The religiously inclined among his supporters do not like the effort to marginalize their intelligence or dismiss their deeply held religious convictions by using disparaging labels to lump them together such as “fundamentalist”, “evangelical”, or even “traditionalists.” In fact, it seems to me that continued efforts to do so are eerily reminiscent of past anti-religious bigotry such as the "no-name" anti-Catholic party of America’s past.

These voters place the dignity of every human person and the right to life from conception to natural death at the head of every concern. It is not a “single issue” for them but a framework through which the entire race must be seen. They argue that without the right to life there are no other rights and that persons must always take precedence. They will never accept the idea that a society should allow the killing of it’s young in the womb and, worse yet, celebrate it as a “right” when it is wrong.

They value marriage and family as the first cell of society, the first school, first economy, first church and first mediating institution. They reject the misguided notion of “freedom” hidden behind the smiling mask of the new libertines who seek to redefine several aberrant chosen sexual lifestyles as the equivalent of marriage and then use the power of the State to enforce their new cultural revolution. Marriage is what it is to these folks and it serves the common good.

They reject an approach to the market economy which forgets that it is a servant and not a master. These folks care about those who have not experienced the benefits of the engine of freedom that is supposed to be the market economy; the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten.

They see a proper role, limited though it may be, in the exercise of “good” government in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. They are not “anti-Government”, whether in the mode of Ron Pauls libertarianism or Senator Thompson’s “true conservative” claims. They believe that we are, in a real sense, “our brother’s keeper” and want to serve the common good by not only caring for their own families but reaching out in solidarity to the poor and the needy.

They want to elect leaders who will help to promote “good” Government; in two senses of the word” good”. They want Governance to be efficient, closest to the smallest group being governed, and good, in the sense of moral, concerned for the poor and promoting the common good. These folks are also concerned about a lot of other issues. However, they are able to order those issues in a hierarchy through the exercise of prudential judgment.

The continued efforts to marginalize the Huckabee candidacy by throwing charged words such as “Liberal” at him, as Senator Thompson did in this last debate, will not stop hurt his candidacy. People are tired of them. We have all lived through word games too many times in the last few decades. I have had the “L word” thrown at me as well because I embrace the totality of the Social teaching of the catholic Church. I have regularly called for moving beyond "liberal" and "conservative", insisting that faithful Catholics who understand, believe in and seek to apply the full palate of Catholic Social teaching, in order to effect genuine social justice, are not "left" or "right", "liberal" or "conservative", in the political sense of those limiting words.

This is what I now hear from this other Governor from Hope Arkansas. His message is appealing to a growing number of voters. The movement growing around it may also frame the future debate in both major political parties

Deacon Fournier in this special commentary for Catholic Online really pours it on Senator Thompson and I think with cause. Again, I ask Catholics to try to engage the ideas of Huckabee. He is not perfect but his ideas seem similar and very open to Catholic Social Doctrine and principle of Governing. To Catholic Republicans and conservatives , such as my self, again there is opportunity here to mesh our conservative political ideas and views with a total Catholic Social ethic in the public square. Even if you do end up supporting the good Governor the discussion would be had and it would be one that would occur just on Catholic blogs and in Catholic Journals the general public never reads.