From the official release:

This is terrific news for freedom and justice. In the hours after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush promised that America would bring Osama bin Laden to justice — and we did. I want to congratulate America’s armed forces and President Obama for a job well done. Let history show that the perseverance of the US military and the American people never wavered. America will never shrink from the fight and ultimately those who seek to harm us face only defeat. Today, justice is done, but the fight against radical Islamic terrorism is not yet over.

From the official release:

“This is a great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere. Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president. My thoughts are with the families of Osama bin Laden’s many thousands of victims, and the brave servicemen and women who have laid down their lives in pursuit of this murderous terrorist.”

Lately, there have been numerous rumors circulating citing “inside information” and claiming that Gov. Mike Huckabee won’t be running for President. Let’s take a closer look at the claims and whether or not there is any truth or substance to any them:

Rumor #1: Huckabee has decided not to run and has released his South Carolina Team.

That rumor was squashed almost as soon as the so called story was “leaked”. Many reputable sites had updates on their stories immediately after posting them. One of Huckabee’s key supporters and part of the 2008 Huckabee Team in South Carolina posted the debunking of that rumor on Facebook.

An article posted yesterday evening has a few more quotes from South Carolina former Governor Beasley, Mike Huckabee 2012 Run Looking More Likely, Key Supporter Says

Rumor #2: Huckabee can’t raise money and can’t run a campaign without it.

Huckabee has voiced his concerns for fundraising; so we know that can be a real issue. It has been reported that he has talked to possible financial backers.

Huckabee recently presided over a series of meetings with financial backers in New York — where he hosts his popular television show on Fox News — in an attempt to ascertain whether he could generate the resources he would need to persuade him to set aside his comfortable private life in order to spend more than a year on the campaign grind.

According to aides, the takeaway was positive.

I know many of us not so wealthy supporters have been saving in hopes of him running again. So, if Huckabee is getting any kind of interest from some of the more wealthy donors he won’t have near the lack of money he did in 2008. Also, Huckabee still has an army of volunteer grassroots supporters as well as Team Huck that is getting set up across the country. How much money are all of us volunteers worth?

Rumor #3: Huckabee is making good money and building a mansion he won’t want to walk away from.

Even Huckabee admits that his good paying jobs and mansion will have to be part of his decision. But, those of us that know and love Gov. Huckabee know he’s been through that decision before and didn’t let money and a nice house stop him.

From page 5 of Huckabee’s book, From Hope to Higher Ground: My Vision for Restoring America’s Greatness:

By now, Janet and I had achieved a level of comfort neither of us had ever dreamed. We were both thirty-six years old, had three children, a good dog, and lived in a nice five-bedroom home with a pool on a cul-de-sac.

I vividly remember the long walk in the neighborhood we took one winter night. We decided that if we indeed were put on earth to become “comfortable,” then we had hit the target. Ours was an enviable life in many ways, but as we walked and talked and prayed, we decided that the purpose for being on earth is not our personal comfort but to strive to make the world better for our children than when we found it.

I know that book was written a while ago before he started the project of building a new home. So, I’ll include a quote from an article posted this week by KATV in Arkansas, On the Road with Huckabee:

But, it’s Huckabee’s prolonged decision that could be making his biggest employer a little anxious. A report this week claims Fox executives are questioning whether they should have Huckabee on the payroll, while his platform is being used to help his Presidential aspirations. Huckabee was quoted in the report that Fox is not pressuring him to make a decision. His comments to us, suggest if things line up the way he wants, he’s in.

“If I thought I could serve my country, and make this country great again, and help get it back on track by giving it leadership, yeah, I’d do it in a heart beat. I just have to be able to visualize a path to the finish line, and believe that I can do more than the platform that i do have, and it’s a significant one, and i’m not oblivious to that.”

Rumor #4: Huckabee needs to jump in now or it will be too late and his supporters will go elsewhere.

There aren’t many Huckabee supporters that are shopping around for other candidates. Huckabee is still polling very well in polls even with the numerous rumors that he won’t be running again flying around. Many of us are volunteering and working on our own as well as with other volunteers doing whatever we can to prepare to make a Huckabee campaign launch successful if he decides to run again. Huckabee does not have the name recognition problem or the unelectable label he had in the 2008 season. He has repeatedly said he’ll make his decision this summer. In the last video I saw where he discussed when this summer – he said, “Probably June.” Rumor is that is when his FOXNEWS contract is up. Maybe he wants to use the remaining time to think as well as to fulfill his contract commitment.

Here are a few quotes from Huckabee ‘asking folks to keep their powder dry,’ adviser says:

Mike Campbell, who chaired Huckabee’s South Carolina campaign in 2008, told CNN that he called his former boss after a South Carolina blog erroneously claimed that Huckabee had decided against running again in 2012.

The report quickly shot around the web Wednesday and forced Huckabee’s team to knock down the rumor.

Campbell called the blog item “a bunch of bull” but said he decided to call Huckabee anyway.

[clip]

Asked about his presidential intentions, the former Arkansas governor told Campbell, “I am weighing it very heavily and I am considering it as seriously as I have ever been.”

[clip]

Campbell said Huckabee can afford to wait longer than other candidates to enter the race because he has an existing network of supporters in key states ready to help him again, putting him in a “great position” to win the nomination.

Huckabee has said that the last election cycle was too long and people were getting bored with it before it was over. What is wrong with getting things started a little later than last time and being more in tune with previous elections? Do people forget that Ronald Reagan kept his media jobs and didn’t announce until November?

June is NOT too late for Huckabee!

Rumor #5: Huckabee isn’t running he’s just leading people on to sell books and keep viewers.

Quote from On the Road with Huckabee:

“It’s not a decision i’m ready to make yet. I’m getting closer and closer. I’m not playing a game with anyone. I think some people think, oh, he knows what he’s going to do, he’s just playing. I’m very mindful of what it takes to run for president,” Huckabee said.

I’ve read and heard from numerous places that it’s starting to look and sound more like Huckabee is “leaning towards” running again. An article posted on the Washington Examiner last night says:

These days, among the people who have known and worked with Huckabee, there is a growing sense that he’s leaning toward another run for the White House.

Stay tuned. We should know sometime this summer – “probably June.”

_______________________________________________________________

-Please visit Ms. Teubert’s personal blog here.

____________________________________________________________________________

-Texas Conservative blogs at ILikeMikeHuckabee2012

This is the headline over at FOX News. Stay tuned…

The Outlook section of the Sunday Washington Post contains a piece by Jonathan Kay, managing editor of the Canadian National Post and author of a new book on conspiracy theorists, that profiles the kind of people and their motivations who become “birthers” or devotees of various conspiracy theories or other wacky, eccentric political perspectives.  I thought the article to be both interesting and amusing and worthy of sharing with our readers.

Inside the minds of the birthers and other conspiracy theorists

By Jonathan Kay, Thursday, April 28, 12:50 PM

Some folks flee from conspiracy theorists — birthers, truthers, those who think that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone or that Jim Morrison is still alive. Not me. In the past three years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of them.

The assortment of people who believe that President Obama was not born in the United States — even after he released his long-form birth certificateon Wednesday — shows that not all conspiracy theorists are unhinged, bug-eyed loners. They often come in more respectable guises: state legislators, radio talk-show hosts or real estate magnates turned reality-TV stars with hopes of landing the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

What distinguishes them from the rest of us isn’t a big bankroll or a particular political persuasion — it’s a twisted relationship with reality. Conspiracy theorists retreat into fantasy worlds, bending fact and history to meet their psychological needs and emotional motivations. Here’s a taxonomy of true fake believers:

1. Apocalyptic Doomsayers

The Apocalyptic Doomsayer — usually, though not always, an evangelical Christian — embraces conspiracy theories to funnel a bewildering mix of anxieties into a simple good-vs.-evil narrative approximating that of the Book of Revelation. Many Apocalyptic Doomsayers scan the news for signs that the world is moving toward an epic confrontation between the forces of light and darkness.

A leading Doomsayer is prominent birther Joseph Farah, a socially conservative born-again Christian whose popular WorldNetDaily Web site fetishizes Obama conspiracies. This site’s readers think conservative American values must battle an Islamist, Afrocentric, socialist president bent on destroying the country.

2. Failed Historians

All ideologues — from Marxists to tea party activists, Islamists to radical Zionists — shoehorn history into preconceived templates, developing triumphalist story lines that will eventually lead to the victory of a chosen group and the vanquishing of an enemy. When history doesn’t cooperate, explanations become necessary. For Failed Historians, conspiracy theories supply those explanations.

An extreme example of the Failed Historian is the Holocaust denier. As Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman concluded in their 2000 book, “Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?,” these conspiracy theorists “like the idea of a rigid, controlled, and powerful state. Some are fascinated with Nazism as a social/political organization and are impressed with the economic gains Germany made in the 1930s. .?.?. The history of the Holocaust is a black eye for Nazism. Deny the veracity of the Holocaust, and Nazism begins to lose this stigma.”

3. The Mentally Unbalanced

Are all conspiracy theorists unhinged? Certainly not. Modern conspiracy movements are usually collaborative enterprises that take root on the Internet, and mentally ill people often struggle with sustained collaborations of any kind. But are some conspiracists troubled? You bet.

In my research, I met a sad fellow who pops up at events such as the We Demand Transparency conspiracy conference in New York City in 2009. He says he was a limousine driver who ferried the Sept. 11 hijackers on reconnaissance trips in and out of New York. I’m not a psychiatrist and can’t verify his claims, but he’s inserted himself into a wild narrative, just as some mentally ill people spin conspiracy theories centered on people they know — estranged spouses, landlords waiting for rent checks and former employers. This isn’t a sign of clear thinking.

4. The Midlife Crisis Case

There’s no polite way to say this: Many conspiracy theorists I met were paunchy 40- and 50-something men facing disappointment in their personal lives. In interviews, it seemed clear that they were struggling with midlife crises and trying to reinvent themselves for a new audience.

Consider Sept. 11 conspiracy theorist Richard Gage, an architect who abandoned his business to roam the world preaching the notion that “controlled demolition” brought down the twin towers. “I’ve never been happier,” he told me in 2009. “I feel blessed, in fact. This is my destiny, my mission. I’ve lost my career. I’ve lost my marriage. I’ve lost my house. But I’m working with patriots, spreading the truth about what’s happened to their country. What more could I ask?”

5. Fakers

I’ve never interviewed Donald Trump, but his sudden interest in birtherism smells like a publicity stunt. What better way to galvanize the Republican Party’s Obama-phobic base?

Perhaps the Donald has been plotting this all along: building a real estate empire in the 1980s, then willfully going bankrupt in a ploy for sympathy before rebuilding a bigger, better brand bolstered by“The Apprentice” and a signature hairdo. I mean, The Washington Post reported this past week that Trump has donated more to Democrats than Republicans. What’s the deal with that? Maybe he engineered Obama’s unlikely win in 2008 just so he could run against him in 2012.

Of course, that’s just a theory.

—————————————————————————————

Jonathan Kay is the managing editor of Canada’s National Post and the author of “Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground,” from which this essay is adapted.

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Having know a few folks in this category over the years, including one leading “birther” activist, I can attest to the validity of Kay’s profile in most cases with which I am familiar.  Of particular note is Farah’s WorldNetDaily mentioned in the article.  In a sense, Farah and his WorldNet(Nut)Daily seem to be filling a role once played by Lyndon LaRouche and his National Caucus of Labor Committees organization, later known as the U.S. Labor Party, back in the ’70′s and ’80′s.  LaRouche made strong rhetorical appeals to the extreme populist right and extolled views that on the surface appeared to coincided with Conservatives, all the while highly critical of the Reagan Administration.  Often described in the media as a hard right winger, he was actually a Stalinist.

Things are not always the way they seem.

Via Bill Kristol:

Mitch Daniels is likely, I’m told, to announce his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination in the next couple of weeks.

Kristol goes on to say that Mike Huckabee is probably running too, but on that count, Kristol seems to be relying not on any anonymous source, but instead on the fact that Huckabee is beginning to act like a presidential candidate.

Daniels’ entry, of course, would come on the heels of two pieces of legislation that will soon bear his signature and that are of utmost importance to social conservatives: a large-scale school vouchers bill and an abortion ban in Indiana. As Daniels remains largely unknown to Americans who are neither Beltway opinion makers, political junkies, nor party activists, he will come onto the scene with a ton of newly-minted socially conservative street cred, possibly overshadowing his inartful use of the word “truce” in prior commentary with regard to the GOP’s approach to cultural issues. Further, if his introduction to the nation as the governor who defunded Planned Parenthood is followed quickly by a pivot to Daniels’ economic and fiscal vision for our country, which, as was evident from Daniels’ excellent address to CPAC this year, is essentially Ryanomics without PowerPoint, then Daniels could enjoy a meteoric rise in a field free of a frontrunner.

I know, I know, this article did come from the New York Times, but it does provide a ground-level view into the 2012 Republican field:

Republican leaders, activists and donors, anxious that the party’s initial presidential field could squander a chance to capture grass-roots energy and build a strong case against President Obama at the outset of the 2012 race, are stepping up appeals for additional candidates to jump in, starting with Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana.

…Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who leads many polls despite taking few steps to organize a campaign, is quietly asking supporters to be patient. And Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former governor of Utah and a relative moderate in a party that has moved to the right, has just returned from his post as ambassador to China to decide whether to join a campaign-in-waiting built by Republicans who see an opening for him.

The wish list among Republicans is wide and varied. Sarah Palin, a former governor of Alaska, retains a devoted following. But activists also express a longing for others to step off the sidelines, including Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Budget Committee.

…There is no guarantee that any Republicans on the sidelines would energize the party, but they seem to be getting almost as much attention as those clearly in the race. Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, said last week that the race was still unformed and that he expected others to join.

The loudest and most persistent entreaties are directed toward Mr. Daniels, who for two terms as governor has shown that fiscal conservatism and political popularity can go hand in hand.

…The call for new candidates, which was the topic of some conversation here Friday at a Republican dinner, is hardly universal. Some Republicans point to the 1992 Democratic field, initially derided as uninspiring, which produced President Bill Clinton.

…While some Republicans have expressed impatience to get the race started in time to raise ample campaign financing, veterans of races past said the money would flow when the field finally settles.

“Hardly anybody’s declared yet, so who are you going to rally around?” said Fred V. Malek, an investor and longtime Republican fund-raiser, who added that he was not concerned about the slow start. “Contributors are waiting until the field is fully formed.”

As you can see, we have a wide range of opinions regarding the race. Some people say the current field will miss out on a fantastic opportunity to harness the enthusiasm of the grassroots, some counsel to just give it time, and some say the field looks just fine.

Of course, as widely discussed here and elsewhere, the biggest potential gains would accrue to a candidate who can “thread the needle” and secure the support of the establishment while also pushing an economic message amenable to the Tea Party. The trinity of Daniels, Ryan, and Christie immediately come to mind. And with Daniels increasingly suggesting that he will, indeed, throw his hat in the ring, we may get to see that theory tested in action.

Remember all the “experts” who have been declaring categorically that Romney will be skipping Iowa? They have continued to insist that even when Mitt has stated a number of times that if he runs, he will wage a national campaign.

The news out of Iowa is that Mitt is now hiring in the state:

Signaling he intends to stage a real effort in Iowa, Mitt Romney has tapped an aide who worked on his 2008 Iowa campaign to head his 2012 caucus effort there, POLITICO has learned.

Sara Craig, previously Romney’s central Iowa field director, will direct his state campaign beginning next month.

The hiring of a day-to-day manager in Iowa offers the best evidence yet that, while he wants to lower expectations in Iowa, Romney still intends to mount a full campaign there.

The former Massachusetts governor hasn’t visited the first-in-the-nation state since stumping for Gov. Terry Branstad last October, but his staffing up signals that a return trip will take place in the near future.

Politico then makes the same point that I’ve been making for some time:

Romney retains a strong following in the state and early polls show him at or close to the top. He won 30,000 votes in the 2008 caucuses and carried a slew of counties, performing particularly strong in more moderate eastern Iowa. And as the nearest thing the GOP has to a frontrunner, it would be an indication of weakness if he attempts to pick and choose which states he plays in.

Romney would be a fool to skip Iowa. It never made much sense to me. He would be walking away from a great deal of support that is already there. Yet that is precisely what a number of arm-chair “experts” have been insisting that he is doing.

Will he mount a full-court press offense like he did last time? It’s doubtful. First, he is far better known now than four years ago. Second, he already has a good size following in the state. Third, he doesn’t need Iowa as badly as he did back then. His strategy is different this time. Fourth, he is way out ahead in New Hampshire and Nevada. If he happened to win Iowa as well as New Hampshire and Nevada; the game would be over. He certainly won’t base his campaign around winning the Hawkeye state, but he will want to keep it close enough so that he will be able to take advantage of any opportunities that might open up.

Those of us who love the rich beauty of the English language ought to cringe when we hear the latest criticism of poor Mitt Romney, who can’t buy a vowel, and can’t win for losing.  Earlier this week, he fell into a bit of criticism from the leftist psycholinguistic police when he unintentionally mixed metaphors.  In an economics speech about President Obama, he first grabbed a metaphor suggesting that the term “misery index” would hang like an albatross around the neck of President Barack Obama:

“You remember during the Ronald Reagan/Jimmy Carter debates? That Ronald Reagan came up with this great thing[1] about the ‘misery index,’ and that he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck, and that had a lot to do with Jimmy Carter losing. Well, we’re going to have to hang the ‘Obama Misery Index’ around his neck”

The albatross metaphor comes from the The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote:

God save thee, ancient Mariner
From the fiends, that plague thee thus
Why look’st thou so ? – With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
…
Ah. well a-day. what evil looks
Had I from old and young
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

Romney forgot to use the word albatross, though it is clear what he meant: we should hold Obama responsible for the current economic state of affairs.

The second problem is the way the brain works.  By leaving off the word albatross, he ended up stretching the original idea into a different metaphor altogether: the metaphor of hanging.   Something hung around the neck is entirely different than a person being hung or hanged by the neck.   Romney continued:

And, I’ll tell you, the fact that you’ve got people in this country, really squeezed, with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard time making ends meet. So, we’re going to have to talk about that, and housing foreclosures and bankruptcies and higher taxation. We’re going to hang him — uh, so to speak, metaphorically — with, uh, with, uh — you have to be careful these days, I’ve learned that, with an Obama Misery Index.

Not only did Romney immediately realize he might be understood, I think it is reasonable to think he didn’t even intend the metaphor at all.   Finally, it is utterly silly and itself contemptuous to take the common idioms of the day and infer some nefarious meaning.  Sarah Palin suffered the same accusations when her campaign website dared used the term “target” – gasp! – to refer to directing attention to a particular candidate for victory.   What Romney said here was harmless, and what he meant to say, even more so[2].