I Can't Tell If This Is A Joke
You know, I kind of like Mike Huckabee, to the extent that I like Republicans. You know, if a guy has good ideas, likes working with Democrats, and means what he says, I don't really begrudge him a few differences on issues. But then I saw this:
He spoke frequently on his faith, the need to rise above the morass of coarse popular culture, and elicited a laugh when calling U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy a "gas bag" for his questioning last week of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
Honestly, I don't know if this is a joke. Are the second and third parts of this sentence intended to be a play on the hypocrisy of political life, or did the reporter catch him in a contradiction? I'm not the only one who sees this, right?
UPDATE: I wrote the reporter, and this is what he said:
The first two parts of that sentence (faith and coarse popular culture) were said at numerous points in the speech, while the Kennedy thing was a takeoff on energy policy, linking "gas" to "gas bag" Whether Huckabee meant it as a barb or a joke or both is something you'd likely need to ask him, but the crowd took the Kennedy line as a joke and laughed.
I still think he's being a hypocrite.