Mike Huckabee Dings Obama on Parenting

Former governor's big concern: Beyonce
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 13, 2015 9:14 AM CST
Mike Huckabee Dings Obama on Parenting
The Obamas depart Air Force One on arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Jan. 4, 2015.   (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Amid murmurs of another presidential run, Mike Huckabee has left his Fox News show behind—but in an interview with People, he still had time to make his views on the Obamas clear. How can such concerned parents, he wondered, let their daughters listen to Beyonce? "I don't understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything—how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school and making sure they're kind of sheltered … and yet they don't see anything that might not be suitable for either a preteen or a teen in some of the lyrical content and choreography of Beyonce, who has sort of a regular key to the door" of the White House, he said.

In a new book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, Huckabee says Beyonce offers "obnoxious and toxic mental poison in the form of song lyrics" and dance routines "best left for the privacy of her bedroom"—even if she is "incredibly talented." Miley Cyrus' twerking, meanwhile, is "disgustingly pornographic." But he's no opponent of the arts, he notes, and he's opposed to censorship: "Government shouldn't try to dictate what art looks like or what it portrays." Among his favorite pop-culture icons are Jennifer Lawrence, the film Dallas Buyers Club, and the show 19 Kids & Counting. He hopes that show's Duggar family will repeat their campaign efforts on his behalf if he runs again: "And now there's more of 'em!" (More of his thoughts on the Duggars here.)

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