Huckabee: Guantanamo Not As Bad As It Seems. Virgil: Huckabee Is As Bad As He Seems.

“Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, . . . who was Arkansas governor until January, says . . . the U.S. prison at the Naval base in Cuba is better than many prisons in the United States & says American prisoners most likely would prefer Guantanamo to incarceration in Arkansas.” That’s like saying Huckabee is not as bad as Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, or Pat Robertson. Maybe not, but who is? The Arkansas prison system was murdering prisoners and torturing them with beatings, electric shock to genitals, etc. before Gitmo was a gleam in Bush’s eye. There was “the daily use of ‘the Strap’ that took the skin from human flesh in frighteningly large strips, and . . the ‘Tucker Telephone’ that was wired to prisoners' testicles and was then cranked to generate electricity ‘to make the call.’ . . the endless other abuses and murders . . .” See, MURDERED BY ARKANSAS. For a movie version, see this clip from Brubaker. The entire Arkansas prison system was declared unconstitutional, but with folks like Mike, George W., and his appointees to the federal courts, maybe we can recreate the good old days. “Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Guantanamo should be closed and others have criticized the federal government for holding suspects indefinitely and apparently without evidence. Huckabee says he understands these concerns, but the prison should remain open and the detainees remain in custody.”