Huckabee Shoots Himself In The Foot With His Mouth

Mike Huckabee proves once again that he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer:

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

I think it’s fairly safe to say that the odds on McCain picking Huckabee as his VP candidate just became a whole lot slimmer.

UPDATE (James Joyner): A lame attempt at humor. My guess is that the Huckster was channeling this Eddie Murphy sketch from 25 years ago:

FILED UNDER: 2008 Election, , , , , ,
Dodd Harris
About Dodd Harris
Dodd, who used to run a blog named ipse dixit, is an attorney, a veteran of the United States Navy, and a fairly good poker player. He contributed over 650 pieces to OTB between May 2007 and September 2013. Follow him on Twitter @Amuk3.

Comments

  1. Granny T says:

    Huckabee took advantage of the noise to poke fun at Obama’s comment about us bitter Bible and gun toting folks.

  2. steve says:

    The humor escapes me. Strikes me as being more of a veiled threat, which could be considered grounds for assault. Huckabee has confirmed his place in history as a 1st class fool.

  3. Brian says:

    Yeah…because we all know its a good idea to joke about someone pointing a gun at a presidential candidate…way to go mike

  4. Mike Huckabee is way out of his depth. I’m sure there’s a clever remark about bringing a dull knife to a gun convention, but I can’t quite find it.

    If someone aimed a gun at me, I’d be hitting the floor too. I would not fault Senator Obama for doing the same thing.

  5. Dodd says:

    Strikes me as being more of a veiled threat

    Well, no, it clearly wasn’t that. It was just a monumentally stupid thing to say.

  6. Charlie says:

    Obviously this joke poked fun at Obama’s inherit fear of weapons. The media will do its best to destroy Huckabee over this, but in the end, most rational people will take it for the joke that it is.

    I love reading the other comments and their faux outrage.

  7. Rich says:

    I’m not an obama supporter but thats not a funny joke saying pointing a gun against a presidential candidate. Not funny at all. Huckabee has a twisted mind in the winter he held dead birds up by the neck on tv and said if you didn’t vote for him you would end up like the dead bird. Sick

  8. Patrick T. McGuire says:

    Given the venue of this speech, this could have had some humor without being controversial if Huckabee had said “Obama saw a gun and dove for the floor.”

    Oh well, I guess this kills the Huck’s chances of being a stand-up comic. (Get it… “kills” his chances???)

  9. Jay says:

    joking about assasination? umm not funny. and obama’s received death threats, so this might be the dumbest thing said so far this election season.

  10. Fiftycal says:

    It would have been funnier if B. Hussein Obama had been waiting in the wings to speak, but BHO had to go out and campaign for votes so he could be sure he gets chosen by the “super” delegates. I imagine he’d have to have his $4000 suit altered so he could put the DEPENDS diaper on. He’d surely soil himself at the sight of so many guns.

  11. floyd says:

    Not funny? Remember Squeaky Fromme? There wasn’t a dry eye in the country for weeks!

    Remember “Death of a President”?? It had liberal commentators ROLLING in the aisles!
    Oh! I forgot President Bush doesn’t count??

  12. Beldar says:

    Huckabee’s “not ready for prime time” in so many senses of that phrase.

    The irony, of course, is that he likely was speakng at the convention in an attempt to maintain a high public profile consistent with being chosen as a vice presidential nominee. I certainly hope Dodd’s right in predicting that this episode makes that a less likely possibility. But with McCain, who knows?

  13. shocker says:

    That isn’t funny at all. It is rather disgusting to talk about killing a presidential candidate. This election has went down the wrong path.

    First someone talks about lynching michelle obama and now this… IT IS DISGUSTING BEHAVIOR.
    Mccain better reject this behavior ultra fast.

  14. nic says:

    Charlie,

    If I quipped that I aimed a gun at your kids face, and the thud we just heard was your wussy child hitting the deck, would you laugh? I would…it’s just soooo funny, isn’t it?

  15. G.A.Phillips says:

    The guy ruins an off the cuff joke and he should be crucified?

    Obama says we are idiots and lesser then him for owing guns and being Christians but that don’t matter.

    to bad slick Willy Jr. don’t understand where he got his rights to talk his kind of smack from.

  16. Dodd says:

    My guess is that the Huckster was channeling this Eddie Murphy sketch

    Governor, I’ve seen Eddie Murphy: I owned Eddie Murphy’s albums; Eddie Murphy was a source of much amusement to me. Governor, you’re no Eddie Murphy.

  17. Len says:

    The guy ruins an off the cuff joke and he should be crucified?

    Why not? John Kerry did the same thing in 2006 and y’all sure crucified him. Remember his botched joke about George W. Bush being proof that if you stay in school and study hard you can do well and if you don’t you end up in Iraq?

    Granted, what Huckabee said today was not quite as stupid as what Bush said yesterday, but still…

    What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and all that.

  18. anjin-san says:

    Time for this guy to leave the national stage. It is simply not a subject for joking…

  19. jimmy says:

    Check out this powerful YouTube Clip called

    “There is NOTHING FUNNY about Assassination”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lQJexev5EI

  20. floyd says:

    Shucks… no film for Lincoln, McKinley,or Garfield??

    Still…. Garfield was pretty funny…whadidhedo??Choke on lasagna??[lol]

  21. graywolf says:

    Huckabee may be a hockey puck, but where has all the “outrage” been re. the Bush assassination fantasies constantly bandied about in the left-wing moonbat and hollywood planets?

  22. CCW4ME2 says:

    B.H.O. is a hopeless hoplophobe. James Carville put it best when he quipped that if H.R.C. gave him one of her “cohones” then he’d have two.

  23. DL says:

    Not to worry about Mccain’s VP Ted Kennedy is still in the running.

  24. bemused observer says:

    Ordained “Southern” Baptist minister, ex-gov of a state that fought desegregation tooth and nail, addresses the National Rifle Association, hears loud noise and INSTANTLY thinks someone must be pointing a gun at the black guy running for president. As a long-time gun owner and a frequent resident of the South, I ask you if it’s any wonder the NRA has the rep as a bunch of knuckle-dragging dipsh.ts? Huck helps keep the “mental” in fundamentalist. He needs to drag his fat ass back to the farm.

  25. Jane says:

    If Huckabee made a joke about Hillary, nobody wouldn’t have complained. I heard many jokes Cheney
    shot someone on TV talk shows after his accidental mistake. Huchabee’s joke is not so much fun as TV talk show jokes.
    Why is this a big news? It is why Obama is a black.
    People can’t say anything and joke about Obama.
    People would connect everything to race.
    Don’t make fun of anybody no matter what race he or she is.

  26. bemused observer says:

    Dear Jane,

    “Nobody wouldn’t” is a double negative, pathetic grammar. Not making fun, you understand, just pointing out a fact about English, the language we all love of the country we all love.

    If Huckabee had made a comment about shooting Hillary Clinton, I’m pretty sure at least one person might have complained. But there’s a way to find out: let’s ask him if he’ll make another speech, throw the “shoot Hillary” joke in, and we’ll see what the response is.

    If you really believe people can’t say anything negative about Obama (and get paid for it), perhaps we should introduce you to another funny American named Ann Coulter.

  27. floyd says:

    “”ex-gov of a state that fought desegregation tooth and nail””
    “”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

    Guilt by state of residence, is bad reasoning,pathetic innuendo.Not making fun, you understand, but don’t you just wish we all loved English, or the country itself for that matter![lol]

  28. G.A.Phillips says:

    Why not? John Kerry did the same thing in 2006 and y’all sure crucified him. Remember his botched joke about George W. Bush being proof that if you stay in school and study hard you can do well and if you don’t you end up in Iraq?

    Yo Smokey what Kerry said is what he believes.

    And what Bush said is true not stupid, but I know that you liberals have so much trouble telling the difference.

    What Mike said could have been a great joke if worded right, because he was not making and joke about shooting slick Willy Jr. he was making a joke about slick Willy Jr. being a poop-hole and saying what he really thinks about the bible reading gun using folks who gave a black man and in all and all any man or woman of any color the right to run for president in this great country.

    Think about the revolutionary and the civil war when you base your precepts on the lowly Christian and his our her gun please, with that big open mind of yours.