Presidential hopeful and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) is engaged in a war of words with a college magazine over a story in which, discussing gay adoption, Huckabee is quoted as saying “children are not puppies.”
Today, Huckabee charges that the student journalist behind the piece was trying to “grossly distort my views.”
Here’s Huckabee’s statement:
The young college student hopefully will find a career other than journalism. I would ask that he release the unedited tape of our conversation. I believe that what people do as individuals in their private lives is their business, but I do not believe we should change the traditional definition of marriage. Not only did he attempt to sensationalize my well known and hardly unusual views of same-sex marriage, he also inaccurately reported my views on Michael Steele as GOP chairman – I offered my support and didn’t “Rip into Steele” as his article asserted. I had a candid and frank conversation with the group about health care, education, the economy and national security while the young journalism student, instead, chose to focus on the issue of same-sex marriage and grossly distort my views.
And the New Jersey college magazine, The Perspective, responds:
It is unfortunate that in the wake of his interview with The Perspective, Gov. Mike Huckabee has resorted to ad hominem attacks intended to cast doubt upon our credibility as a publication. This sort of desperate tactic is not surprising, however; politicians in damage-control mode often stoop to attacking the media so they might avoid being accountable for the substance of their remarks.
It is telling that nowhere in his statement did Huckabee suggest he was misquoted in the article, and rightfully so; we have the audio and transcripts to prove that everything reported is accurate.
And the student who wrote the piece, Michael Tracey, has posted audio portions of the interview:
Tracey tells the Washington Post in an email:
“You will see that Huckabee’s claim that his words were ‘grossly distorted’ are patently ridiculous. Notice in his statement he never alleged that he was misquoted; that is because the audio corroborates all our reporting. He simply had a problem with the framing and emphasis of the questions.
