{"id":653,"date":"2007-12-19T07:03:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T07:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=653"},"modified":"2007-12-19T07:03:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T07:03:00","slug":"huckabees-fact-twisting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=653","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee’s Fact Twisting"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/font><\/p>\n


<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.worldnetdaily.com\/news\/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59252
<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s
\nfact-twisting<\/font><\/span>

\n

\n<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\n

Posted: December 19, 2007
\n1:00 a.m. Eastern<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In the Nov. 28 YouTube debate on
\nCNN, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee misrepresented the
\nhistorical record when asked if he had supported as Arkansas governor a program
\nfor granting in-state college tuition scholarships for illegal aliens. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

A YouTube viewer asked Huckabee a question<\/span><\/a> that began,
\n“Governor Huckabee, while governor of Arkansas, you gave illegal aliens a
\ndiscount for college in Arkansas by allowing them to pay lower in-state tuition
\nrates.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In Huckabee’s answer, I have
\nidentified five specific, easily documented misrepresentations of historical
\nfacts. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee began his response by
\ntelling the questioner, “Ashley, first of all, let me just express that
\nyou are a little misinformed. We never passed a bill that gave special
\nprivileges to the children of illegals to go to college.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In the next paragraph, Huckabee
\nmisrepresented the program the first time, identified here by italics. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

First, he claimed he supported a
\nbill “that would’ve allowed those children who had been in our schools
\ntheir entire school life<\/em> the opportunity to have the same scholarship that
\ntheir peers had, who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same
\nclassrooms.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The bill in question was the Access to Postsecondary Education Act of 2005<\/span><\/a>,
\nalso known as HB 1525. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Section 1(b) of HB1525 offered
\nstate-supported tuition scholarships to illegal immigrants who attended only
\nthree years of high school in Arkansas, provided they graduated from an
\nArkansas high school or received a General Education Development diploma in the
\nstate, and were admitted at an Arkansas institution of higher education. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

None of the provisions of the bill
\nrequire the illegal immigrants to have attended Arkansas elementary or high
\nschools for “their entire life,” as Huckabee represented in the
\ndebate. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The next paragraph of Huckabee’s
\nYouTube debate answer contained the second misrepresentation of facts, once
\nagain emphasized here with italics. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

“They couldn’t just move in
\nduring their senior year and go to college,” Huckabee continued. “It
\nwasn’t about out-of-state tuition. It was an academic meritorious
\nscholarship called the Academic Challenge Scholarship<\/em>.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The Arkansas Challenge Program,
\ncodified at Ark. Code Ann. Section 6-82-1001-1006 (Supp. 1991), is a totally
\nseparate law from HB 1525. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The Arkansas Challenge Program was
\nenacted in 1991, becoming law more than four years before Huckabee began his
\nfirst term as Arkansas governor in 1996. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee had nothing to do with the
\npassage of the Arkansas Challenge Program, a law based on being an Arkansas
\nresident that makes no mention of illegal immigrants. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Evidently, Huckabee sought to
\ndeflect attention about HB 1525 by referring to the Challenge Program, an act
\nthat was meritorious in nature. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 made no special exemptions
\nfor illegal aliens who merited tuition preferences because of their exemplary
\nacademic performance. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In the next paragraph of his CNN
\ndebate answer, Huckabee tells the truth, noting that HB 1525 passed the
\nArkansas House, but failed to become law after the bill failed to pass the
\nArkansas Senate. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee, however, neglected to
\nreference his State of the State Address, also archived
\non YouTube<\/span><\/a>, in which he endorsed HB 1525, again on the false
\npremises that the bill applied to illegal immigrants who had attended Arkansas
\nschools for “their entire career as a student.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

If we skip a paragraph of Huckabee’s
\nresponse in the debate, we come to Huckabee’s third misrepresentation, in which
\nhe identified a set of qualifications not mentioned in HB1525 that Huckabee
\nclaimed an illegal immigrant would have to meet under the bill to qualify for
\nin-state college tuition scholarships. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The paragraph also contains the
\nfourth misrepresentation, where Huckabee specified to be eligible an illegal
\nalien would have to apply for citizenship. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee told the CNN debate
\naudience, “I said that if you’d sat in our schools from the time you’re
\n5 or 6 years old and you had become an A-plus student, you’d completed the
\ncurriculum, you were an exceptional student, and you also had to be drug and
\nalcohol-free<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the other provision, you had to be applying for
\ncitizenship<\/em>.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, Huckabee realized these
\ninvented qualifications would make his support of in-state college tuition
\nscholarships for illegal immigrants appear to be more politically acceptable to
\nopponents of illegal immigration. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is none of these
\nqualifications were specified in HB 1525, the only relevant bill here that
\nHuckabee actually supported. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 was not a merit bill. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Section 1(d) of HB 1525 merely
\nrequired an illegal alien, to be eligible for an in-state college tuition
\nscholarship, had to file an affidavit with the state-sponsored institution of
\nhigher education stating that the student had intent to legalize his or her
\nimmigration status. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Contrary to what Huckabee said,
\nHB1525 required no proof a student had obtained legal status or even had
\napplied to obtain legal status. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 did not require proof of
\nlegal status. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s fifth misrepresentation
\ncame when he told the CNN debate audience, “We wanted people to be taxpayers,
\nnot tax-takers. And that’s what that provision did<\/em>.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 had no work requirement
\nprovisions specifying an illegal immigrant who qualified for an in-state
\ncollege tuition scholarship had to work in Arkansas, or anywhere else, while he
\nor she was a college student or afterwards. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 had no work requirements
\nspecified. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

What this analysis suggests is
\nHuckabee appears to have a facility to re-invent the past when questioned
\nclosely about a past action or statement, here his support of HB 1525. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee answers by shifting ground,
\nmixing HB 1525 with a merit law passed before Huckabee was governor that was
\nnever designed for illegal immigrants. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, Huckabee mischaracterizes
\nthe true conditions of HB 1525 with a series of invented requirements, none of
\nwhich had any factual basis in the actual language of the bill. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s point appears to be to
\nengage misdirection by falsehoods designed to elicit our sympathies. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The candidate’s convenient rewriting
\nof history sets the stage for him to argue before a national television
\naudience, “This bill would’ve said that if you came here, not because you
\nmade the choice, but because your parents did, that we’re not going to punish a
\nchild because the parent committed a crime.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we have come to
\nexpect our politicians to lie. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Still, when re-inventing the past
\nbecomes a ready facility of a candidate never before scrutinized at the
\npresidential level, the charge becomes particularly important. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

How can we allow a man who
\nrepresents himself to Christian conservatives as a Baptist preacher to run for
\npresident on a self-styled myth of his political history? <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

If Huckabee feels no personal
\nresponsibility to recall his political history accurately, we as an electorate
\nmust be doubly vigilant, determined to make sure no Huckabee slip goes by
\nunnoticed. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

This is especially critical when we
\nrealize the YouTube questioner had not asked Huckabee to justify his position
\nsupporting preferential in-state tuition colleges for illegal immigrants as
\nsuch, but to explain why Huckabee had neglected to argue the provisions of HB
\n1525 should apply to the children of U.S. military as well. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee got to this, but only at
\nthe end, when he claimed, “And that’s why I proposed a veterans bill of
\nrights that, if anything, would give our veterans the most exceptional
\nprivileges of all, because they are the ones who have earned all of our freedom
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u201c every single one of them.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Remarkably, even though Huckabee
\nexceeded his allotted time, he still failed to answer the question, never
\nexplaining why he supported HB 1525 for illegal immigrants only, and not for
\nthe children of U.S. military as well. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Note: The question and answer exchange
\nduring the YouTube\/CNN debate can
\nbe seen online<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/em> <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s
\nfact-twisting<\/font><\/span>

\n

\n<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\n

Posted: December 19, 2007
\n1:00 a.m. Eastern<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In the Nov. 28 YouTube debate on
\nCNN, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee misrepresented the
\nhistorical record when asked if he had supported as Arkansas governor a program
\nfor granting in-state college tuition scholarships for illegal aliens. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

A YouTube viewer asked Huckabee a question<\/span><\/a> that began,
\n“Governor Huckabee, while governor of Arkansas, you gave illegal aliens a
\ndiscount for college in Arkansas by allowing them to pay lower in-state tuition
\nrates.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In Huckabee’s answer, I have
\nidentified five specific, easily documented misrepresentations of historical
\nfacts. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee began his response by
\ntelling the questioner, “Ashley, first of all, let me just express that
\nyou are a little misinformed. We never passed a bill that gave special
\nprivileges to the children of illegals to go to college.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In the next paragraph, Huckabee
\nmisrepresented the program the first time, identified here by italics. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

First, he claimed he supported a
\nbill “that would’ve allowed those children who had been in our schools
\ntheir entire school life<\/em> the opportunity to have the same scholarship that
\ntheir peers had, who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same
\nclassrooms.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The bill in question was the Access to Postsecondary Education Act of 2005<\/span><\/a>,
\nalso known as HB 1525. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Section 1(b) of HB1525 offered
\nstate-supported tuition scholarships to illegal immigrants who attended only
\nthree years of high school in Arkansas, provided they graduated from an
\nArkansas high school or received a General Education Development diploma in the
\nstate, and were admitted at an Arkansas institution of higher education. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

None of the provisions of the bill
\nrequire the illegal immigrants to have attended Arkansas elementary or high
\nschools for “their entire life,” as Huckabee represented in the
\ndebate. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The next paragraph of Huckabee’s
\nYouTube debate answer contained the second misrepresentation of facts, once
\nagain emphasized here with italics. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

“They couldn’t just move in
\nduring their senior year and go to college,” Huckabee continued. “It
\nwasn’t about out-of-state tuition. It was an academic meritorious
\nscholarship called the Academic Challenge Scholarship<\/em>.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The Arkansas Challenge Program,
\ncodified at Ark. Code Ann. Section 6-82-1001-1006 (Supp. 1991), is a totally
\nseparate law from HB 1525. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The Arkansas Challenge Program was
\nenacted in 1991, becoming law more than four years before Huckabee began his
\nfirst term as Arkansas governor in 1996. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee had nothing to do with the
\npassage of the Arkansas Challenge Program, a law based on being an Arkansas
\nresident that makes no mention of illegal immigrants. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Evidently, Huckabee sought to
\ndeflect attention about HB 1525 by referring to the Challenge Program, an act
\nthat was meritorious in nature. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 made no special exemptions
\nfor illegal aliens who merited tuition preferences because of their exemplary
\nacademic performance. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In the next paragraph of his CNN
\ndebate answer, Huckabee tells the truth, noting that HB 1525 passed the
\nArkansas House, but failed to become law after the bill failed to pass the
\nArkansas Senate. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee, however, neglected to
\nreference his State of the State Address, also archived
\non YouTube<\/span><\/a>, in which he endorsed HB 1525, again on the false
\npremises that the bill applied to illegal immigrants who had attended Arkansas
\nschools for “their entire career as a student.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

If we skip a paragraph of Huckabee’s
\nresponse in the debate, we come to Huckabee’s third misrepresentation, in which
\nhe identified a set of qualifications not mentioned in HB1525 that Huckabee
\nclaimed an illegal immigrant would have to meet under the bill to qualify for
\nin-state college tuition scholarships. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The paragraph also contains the
\nfourth misrepresentation, where Huckabee specified to be eligible an illegal
\nalien would have to apply for citizenship. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee told the CNN debate
\naudience, “I said that if you’d sat in our schools from the time you’re
\n5 or 6 years old and you had become an A-plus student, you’d completed the
\ncurriculum, you were an exceptional student, and you also had to be drug and
\nalcohol-free<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the other provision, you had to be applying for
\ncitizenship<\/em>.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, Huckabee realized these
\ninvented qualifications would make his support of in-state college tuition
\nscholarships for illegal immigrants appear to be more politically acceptable to
\nopponents of illegal immigration. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is none of these
\nqualifications were specified in HB 1525, the only relevant bill here that
\nHuckabee actually supported. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 was not a merit bill. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Section 1(d) of HB 1525 merely
\nrequired an illegal alien, to be eligible for an in-state college tuition
\nscholarship, had to file an affidavit with the state-sponsored institution of
\nhigher education stating that the student had intent to legalize his or her
\nimmigration status. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Contrary to what Huckabee said,
\nHB1525 required no proof a student had obtained legal status or even had
\napplied to obtain legal status. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 did not require proof of
\nlegal status. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s fifth misrepresentation
\ncame when he told the CNN debate audience, “We wanted people to be taxpayers,
\nnot tax-takers. And that’s what that provision did<\/em>.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 had no work requirement
\nprovisions specifying an illegal immigrant who qualified for an in-state
\ncollege tuition scholarship had to work in Arkansas, or anywhere else, while he
\nor she was a college student or afterwards. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

HB 1525 had no work requirements
\nspecified. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

What this analysis suggests is
\nHuckabee appears to have a facility to re-invent the past when questioned
\nclosely about a past action or statement, here his support of HB 1525. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee answers by shifting ground,
\nmixing HB 1525 with a merit law passed before Huckabee was governor that was
\nnever designed for illegal immigrants. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, Huckabee mischaracterizes
\nthe true conditions of HB 1525 with a series of invented requirements, none of
\nwhich had any factual basis in the actual language of the bill. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee’s point appears to be to
\nengage misdirection by falsehoods designed to elicit our sympathies. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The candidate’s convenient rewriting
\nof history sets the stage for him to argue before a national television
\naudience, “This bill would’ve said that if you came here, not because you
\nmade the choice, but because your parents did, that we’re not going to punish a
\nchild because the parent committed a crime.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we have come to
\nexpect our politicians to lie. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Still, when re-inventing the past
\nbecomes a ready facility of a candidate never before scrutinized at the
\npresidential level, the charge becomes particularly important. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

How can we allow a man who
\nrepresents himself to Christian conservatives as a Baptist preacher to run for
\npresident on a self-styled myth of his political history? <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

If Huckabee feels no personal
\nresponsibility to recall his political history accurately, we as an electorate
\nmust be doubly vigilant, determined to make sure no Huckabee slip goes by
\nunnoticed. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

This is especially critical when we
\nrealize the YouTube questioner had not asked Huckabee to justify his position
\nsupporting preferential in-state tuition colleges for illegal immigrants as
\nsuch, but to explain why Huckabee had neglected to argue the provisions of HB
\n1525 should apply to the children of U.S. military as well. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee got to this, but only at
\nthe end, when he claimed, “And that’s why I proposed a veterans bill of
\nrights that, if anything, would give our veterans the most exceptional
\nprivileges of all, because they are the ones who have earned all of our freedom
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u201c every single one of them.” <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Remarkably, even though Huckabee
\nexceeded his allotted time, he still failed to answer the question, never
\nexplaining why he supported HB 1525 for illegal immigrants only, and not for
\nthe children of U.S. military as well. <\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Note: The question and answer exchange
\nduring the YouTube\/CNN debate can
\nbe seen online<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/em> <\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/o:p><\/span>elated special offer:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

Get Corsi’s latest book, autographed: “The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada”<\/a>
\n\n<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Jerome R. Corsi<\/a>
\nis a staff reporter for WND. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard
\nUniversity in political science in 1972 and has written many books and
\narticles, including his latest best-seller, “The Late Great USA.”<\/a>
\nCorsi co-authored with John O’Neill the No. 1 New York Times
\nbest-seller, “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against
\nJohn Kerry.” Other books include “Showdown with Nuclear Iran,”<\/a> “Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil<\/a>,” which he co-authored with WND columnist Craig. R. Smith<\/a>, and “Atomic Iran<\/a>.”<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.worldnetdaily.com\/news\/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59252 Huckabee’s fact-twisting Posted: December 19, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern In the Nov. 28 YouTube debate on CNN, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee misrepresented the historical record when asked if he had supported as Arkansas governor a program for granting in-state college tuition scholarships for illegal aliens. A YouTube viewer asked Huckabee a question that … Continue reading Huckabee’s Fact Twisting<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huckabee-lies-on-scholarships-for-illegals","category-huckabee-shameful-record"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}