By Adam Bitely
While campaigning for the GOP nomination for President in 2007, Mike Huckabee said that “[w]e have a responsibility to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, to conserve energy, to find alternative forms of energy that are renewable and sustainable and environmentally friendly.” Huckabee continued by stating support to Bloomberg for an “economy-wide `cap-and-trade’ system to control greenhouse gases.”
Fast forward to present-day 2010, and Huckabee is singing a different tune.
In a statement released from Huckabee, he claims:
“In a recent internet post, a contributor makes the claim that I supported cap-and-trade in late 2007 while running for President.
“To put it simply, that’s just not true.
“If companies chose to participate voluntarily as part of their corporate policy, then fine. But I was clear that we could not force U.S. businesses to do what their Chinese counterparts refused to – and doing so would have been a serious job killer.”
That’s quite a reversal for someone to make. Not only has Huckabee flipped his position entirely, he fails to recognize that his previous statements were supportive of the exact position that he now claims he never held.
But let’s put his 2007 comments in to perspective. The green environmentalists were winning the PR war on greenhouse gasses. The GOP nominee for President in 2008, John McCain, supported Cap & Trade and was even a co-sponsor of legislation in the Senate that would implement such policies. So it is not unlikely that Huckabee simply attempted to out-left his opponent on the campaign trail by supporting similar legislation.
Huckabee now suggests that he supported a “voluntary” Cap & Trade law at the time of his 2007 comments. He failed to distinguish in ’07 that his plan would be “voluntary.” But that is neither here nor there for politicians that peddle such half-truths in today’s political sphere.
Consider also that Huckabee has suddenly become a fiscal conservative, arguing that Government spending is out of control. While he is absolutely correct on this, he failed to show any such budgetary restraint when he was Governor of Arkansas. Under his watch, he raised taxes 21 times while also increasing fees.
This type of double talk is the exact problem that many see running rampant in Washington, D.C.. When politicians say one thing, then later admit that they really meant another, it becomes harder and harder to trust them. Their actions speak much louder than their words. Huckabee’s walk-back on Cap & Trade is a prime example of what is wrong with the political discourse we are left to deal with today.
I guess next we will hear that Mitt Romney doesn’t support Health Care mandates from the federal government. Oh wait… Never mind.
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com.
