Huckabee says the claims against Paul indicate 'somebody is afraid of what you’re saying.' Huckabee hits Paul plagiarism flap

Mike Huckabee on Thursday called the plagiarism controversy hounding Sen. Rand Paul “absurd” and “just an indication that somebody is afraid of” the Kentucky Republican’s views.

The former Arkansas governor kicked off his interview with Paul by telling the senator he wanted “to get this nutty thing out of the way.” The plagiarism accusations, according to Huckabee, simply stem from “liberals who have nothing better to do.”


“I’m thinking, seriously? Is that the best they got? I’ve just been appalled,” Huckabee said on his radio show. “I don’t know of anybody who has ever made speeches that felt like they had to go and footnote everything in the speech.”

Huckabee — who did not address the charges of plagiarism surrounding Paul’s book or his weekly columns in The Washington Times, which the paper dropped Tuesday — said he thought back on the speeches he’s given over the years and “just raised my eyebrows and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’” when he considered the senator’s situation.

“You know, I would almost take it as a compliment because if the only thing they can come after you for, Senator, is that you’ve referenced some things in pop culture and you didn’t spend 23 of your 25 minutes giving the detailed bibliography, then you’ve done what every other public speaker I know would do and that is that you go for the content, communicating to your audience, rather than trying to present some scholarly paper,” Huckabee said.

The whole situation is “absurd,” the conservative radio host told the senator.

“And anyway, I think it’s just an indication that somebody is afraid of what you’re saying, not the manner in which you’re saying it because you speak the truth and that bothers some people,” he said.

This article tagged under: Mike Huckabee

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