I don'tr his politics and I find him a huckster - but then there are flashes of decency about the man.  And he is funny. (The joke, under any other circumstance, would have been funny ....)

What I especially liked about his apology was that there was none of the "I regret that my comments were misunderstood" crap that you get from everyone these days.  Look at this simple sentence: "I apologize that my comments were offensive, that was never my intention."  When was the last time you read something this simple and, I have to confess, utterly disarming?

Icarusr: You speak for me in your eloquent reply.

One could spend all day on this, but "I apologize that my comments were offensive" could sound like he's sorry the comments offended someone.  Better would have been "I apologize for my offensive comments...". which does a better job acknowledging that the comments themselves were offensive.

I'll accept at face value that the apology for the offensive comments is sincere.

"The joke, under any other circumstance, would have been funny ...."

Really? I don't get it.

Huckabee made a joke earlier this year about candidates losing to him even though they had more money “sitting in a warm tub of water with razor blades." For such a genial guy, he's got a pretty dark streak. Maybe he needs to see a therapist.

Woody, I'm with you.  It carried the tone of a threat.  Jokes about shooting people--let alone a presidential candidate who might incite that kind of hatred aren't cute.  Especially given the crowd (white Southerners) that was present.  

Yeah--there's a dark street there.  Now consider that his son hung a dog.  Strange family.

I thought it was an awful comment. No way to spin that it might have been funny under other circumstances. Under what circumstances would that joke have been funny? Please enlighten me. And I don't think his apology was adequate. He's sorry if he gave offense? I think he should have been more specific in apologizing for the content of his remarks.

And it came so quickly out of nowhere. Somehow, I don't think it was improvised. I think he had a version of that joke up his sleeve, and the falling chair provided the excuse to use it. He apologized, but he still got the thought out there. And he put it out there at an NRA event, where there might have been any number of whackos in attendance.

I think it is time to start taking wagers on the over/under on apologies doled out to Obama.  We can have separate categories:  an actual honest to goodness apology, apologies half-heartedly offered, apologies that are simple CYA, apologies that simply cover a renewed opportunity for spreading smears, non-apology apologies, apologies forced out of right-wing hacks from the McCain campaign (although, these might be a doomed breed already, I think the notion that McCain is going to be respectful and clean is foolishness itself) and non-apologies.

Other categories can be added, but someone at TNR needs to keep track for us.

I think we will see at least 15 total incidents with some form of jab at Obama with apologies trotting in on their heels.  

Bob Barr opportunistically lectures Mike Huckabee (see below ) on "his attitude toward proper, legal

I agree with scire.  This "joke" looks like it might have been a kind of dig at Obama implying physical intimidation or something similar that has Obama scared of guns or of the sound of a shot.

I doubt that he wanted to create the image of Obama rolling his eys and imploring "No massuh!  Please!" but you never know.

The joke was crudely put, sure, but I think it's pretty obvious that Huckabee wasn't joking about Obama getting shot.

He was attempting to joke about how Obama, like *all* pansy liberals, is afraid of guns. The premise is, presumably, that Republicans don't get startled by gunshots because they're Real Men.

No less asinine a joke, but at least not sadistic.

Hm, just rewatched it... Huckabee did actually say "Somebody pointed a gun at him" ... okay I take it back, he really is an ass.

I wish they'd stop. I mean, not in this case, obviously - this was so egregious, he couldnt very well have not apologized! Not a hint needed from the Obama campaign to make him do so, either. But in other cases I've felt like the Obama campaign have hunted for apologies - part of their post-Kerry strategy of agressively responding to low attacks, leaving no space for swiftboating, no doubt. But I think that it could very well backfire in a big way.

I like Huckabee, and yeah I admit he has a dark streak in him (he made a crack about breaking Colberts wrist during an interview) but he sure as hell doesn't need a therapist. If he weren't a minister then we wouldn't hold him to higher standards. Huckabee can be genuinely witty though, and a problem with funny people is sometimes they make terrible jokes. I think this is one such case.

I'm with blackton. Huckabee may have a dark streak in him, but he's also shown that he's basically a decent person (especially in his response to the Wright episodes.) Who hasn't caught themselves saying something stupid which, even as they were saying it, they realized was a mistake?

I agree that Huckabee is basically a decent guy but there's something about this crawling to the NRA that's a  bit humiliating.  Of course politicians should speak to interest groups, but there's also a matter of distance -- the politician showing he/she is not owned by that particular group and the group itself wanting to show itself as non-partisan.  It was a bit stupid for the NRA to refuse to invite either Clinton or Obama to speak because they are going to find themselves out in the cold for the next few years.