I’ll agree that it’s rather odd to put squirrel in a popcorn popper. And tales (tails?) of fried squirrel certainly don’t endear Mike Huckabee to me either. It’s the leap to the suggestion of possible animal cruelty where we seem to differ. In any event, I’m certain this will be my last comment on the subject.

I wouldn’t have known Huckabee said any of this stuff or that his son did what he did if either of those stories hadn’t made it into the blogs or other sites that I follow with RSS – because I watch virtually no television except when I’m on the treadmill a few mornings a week.

It’s crazy, silly stuff to me but I also find it to be something that no one I know would brag about or offer up as something that makes them have things in common with other people. It is odd to put squirrel in a popcorn popper. That’s my opinion. No one else may share it, but that doesn’t change it for me.

If Mike Huckabee had said, “We would fry chickens in a popcorn popper in the dorm room,” would you insist on a clarification of whether the chickens were dead or alive before frying? If so, I believe most people would think your insistence more than a little odd.

To someone (such as Gov. Huckabee) who explicitly talked about eating fried squirrels, I’m assuming that the question “Were they dead or alive before cooking?” would be just as bizarre as a similar question about fried chickens. Perhaps that’s why a clarification has not been issued, or even perceived as needed?

But for people who are interested in him as a president, they should get the answers. IMO.

I’m not one of those people. I do NOT want Mike Huckabee to be president, but nothing to do with squirrels.

1. I haven’t seen anything that clarifies whether Huckabee was talking about a dead or alive animal and I haven’t read that he’s tried to clarify it. The way he stated it on MSNBC makes it sound to me as though it was alive.

Maybe you and I can agree that there’s a difference in how to react to the incident depending on whether the animal was dead or alive.

If it was dead, I still would find the treatment vile with the only exception being if he was Grizzly Adams with no other food to eat. I don’t think that was, however, the case. Huckabee presented this as a cute get to know me anecdote.

2. No clinician would label anyone a sociopath based on one incident of ANYTHING. And neither would I. As I wrote, there are a few things to straighten out when someone tells you or you hear a story such as the one Huckabee told.

3. Add Huckabee’s story to this story in Newsweek about how his son was fired from being a counselor for hanging a dog at Boy Scouts camp and stringing it up.

Anon – you know that laws to protect animals came before laws to protect children?

I don’t like mistreatment of either and I think there’s some ’splaining to do, if anyone really cares. He’s not my candidate to begin with so I’m not all that concerned as to whether he clears it up or not. But for people who are interested in him as a president, they should get the answers. IMO.

Of course, it is ALL relative.

I’m not making an “everybody does it” argument to justify a wrong. I’m just observing that Mike Huckabee’s claim is not unprecedented.

More generally, I’m not quite sure of the basis of your it’s-not-okay reaction. What if we were talking about frying chicken parts in a popcorn popper? Would you object to that? Assuming any chicken or squirrel fried in a popper was killed humanely, I don’t find any fundamental difference.

Under the assumption that the squirrel was shot dead before cooking, what, exactly, is the problem? That eating squirrel is disgusting? That a popcorn popper is not a proper appliance for frying meat?

I’ll agree that eating squirrel is disgusting and that a popcorn popper may be a suboptimal fryer. However, I’m not ready to label someone who hunts and cooks a squirrel as a budding sociopath, particularly if he (probably) comes from a culture in which hunting is the norm. (And no, I’ve never hunted or eaten game.)

I think you are almost always correct, Carole – politically or not.

I do agree that it seems acceptable to pick on certain things…west virginians and incest for example, while other things are taboo. I vascilate between too much political correctness and not enough. Okay Im getting a headache.