Mike Huckabee is the latest potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination (along with Michele Bachmann) to make an inappropriate Holocaust analogy.
The controversial comments were made during a speech in Pittsburg. Huckabee spoke about the American economy and recalled his visit to the Yad VaShem Holocaust Museum with his 11-year-old daughter, who wrote in the museum’s guestbook, “Why didn’t somebody do something?”.
Huckabee noted that his daughter’s question relates not only to the Holocaust, saying “let there never be a time in this country where some father has to look over his daughter’s shoulder and see her ask this haunting question, “Why didn’t somebody do something?”
And yes: good for Huckabee for visiting Israel, and taking his daughter to Yad VaShem, but I’m sorry he didn’t learn from that visit how wrong it is to make such an analogy.
Update: I haven’t seen a transcript of Huckabee’s remarks, but Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League now says he understands Huckabee intended no direct connection between “today’s issues and the Holocaust.” If that is the case, I apologize to Huckabee.
Further update: You can watch Huckabee’s speech (he was addressing the National Rifle Association) here. The relevant remarks start at 20:00, and they are quite moving. But I don’t understand why he had to segue from that to saying: “We cannot afford to be a generation that leaves our children with nothing but a huge debt and the erosion of the very freedoms…” In fact I don’t understand why it belonged in that particular speech at all.
