Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee claimed his comments on women, contraceptives and “libido” were taken completely out of context by a Twitter-happy media, stating that his “pushback is not about contraceptives” but instead “Democrats and this phony ‘War on Women’ that they say Republicans have.”
The Republican spoke with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly about remarks he made during a speech on Thursday. Democrats, he said, “want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government.”
Democrats and their friends in the media immediately pounced on the comments, calling them demeaning and derogatory because they suggested women cannot control their sexual urges.
But Huckabee contends that his words were taken completely out of context. “Everything I was accused of saying, I was actually saying the polar opposite,” he began. “This was an affirmation of the intelligence, of the capability of women.”
The governor said that his wife and daughter “are insulted” by the way the Democrats “portray them as victims of their gender. It wasn’t even about contraceptives; it was about the way Democrats have accused Republicans of having a ‘War on Women,’ when Republicans believe women are quite our equal. We don’t think that it somehow is gonna be necessary for them to have a government subsidy or government support or they’re not going to make it.”
Kelly pressed Huckabee hard on his opinion of women and contraceptive use. “Are you passing any judgment on the use of birth control by couples having intercourse that are not looking to have a baby?” she asked.
“No!” he responded. “My pushback is not about contraceptives, the comment wasn’t about it. It was about Democrats and this phony ‘War on Women’ that they have pretended Republicans have.”
“This is a serious issue that cannot be reduced to 140 characters, which is unfortunately, I think, what happened yesterday,” he continued, referencing the plethora of anti-Huckabee tweets flooding Twitter. “A couple reporters tried to reduce this entire issue to a tweet. They got it wrong. They later came back and corrected it, but by then the firestorm had started.”
Huckabee also explained “Uncle Sugar,” which raised some eyebrows in Yankee circles. “It’s a Southern term,” he explained. “If they’d’ve grown up in the South, they would have known that Uncle Sugar is the combination of ‘Uncle Sam’ and a sugar daddy. It’s a colorful way to talk in the South.”
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