By
Max Brantley
On
8:21 am

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who decamped for income-tax-free Florida shortly after his tenure ended in an orgy of hard drive-crushing, has always been known for sarcastic cracks about others and a thin-skin for those who respond in kind. But the latest from Florida beats all.

Huckabee, who has a multi-million-dollar McMansion on the sugar sand of a beach near Destin, is in the center of a fight to negate Florida’s long history of public access to its beaches.

A slashing opinion piece in the Sun-Sentinel tells the tale:

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Huckabee’s other favorite hangout is Twitter, where he’s known for awful puns and a steady barrage of criticism against Democrats, such as a racist tweet that went viral last year. It depicted Latino men flashing gang hand signals as Nancy Pelosi’s “campaign committee for the take-back of the House.”

Ol’ Huck can dish it out, but he can’t take it.

 

When a persistent critic, a lawyer on the public side of the beach access battle, tweeted back with sarcasm and humor, Huckabee tried to silence him by filing a formal complaint with the Florida Bar. The complaint should be tossed out as a sham and an abuse of the system of disciplining lawyers.

In his Bar complaint, Huckabee accuses lawyer Daniel Uhlfelder of “vile and unprofessional attacks” and “repeatedly posting disparaging information about me,” which Huckabee claims violate Bar rules on integrity of the legal profession.

It’s an affront to the First Amendment and common sense.

The Huck, who can turn an insult with the best of them, seems particularly upset by being lampooned by cartoonist Andy Marlette of the Pensacola News Journal. He’s done great work on the Huckster, such as the one shown at top that apparently got under the paper-thin skin of the “Christian” TV star.

Steve Bosquet wrote further in the Sun-Sentinel:

He took offense at Uhlfelder liking this Twitter remark: “I’m trying not to picture Ol’ Man Huckabee slathered in Noxzema, clad in a Fox & Friends T-shirt, khaki shorts, calf-length black socks and sandals, wandering along the beach with a metal detector.” That’s not disparaging. It’s funny.

Uhlfelder especially infuriated Huckabee by responding to a tweeted suggestion for a Secret Service code name for Huckabee with this: “Beach thief.” The complaint says: “He accused me of theft, a crime of moral turpitude.”

Uhlfelder also liked this Tweet putting Huck in the company of accused Giuliani pals.

Coincidentally, Huck has been crusading for the First Amendment on college campuses where he suggests it’s threatened by political correctness. Presumably he’d applaud the shutdown of satire of such great men as the Huckster.

Follow Daniel Uhlfelder on Twitter. Help #@govmikehuckabeebeachthief go viral.  Note: Uhlfelder had 422 followers on Twitter before Huck’s complaint. Now he has 33,000, perhaps not including the Huckster, who’s blocked him from seeing his account. (I’m also a proud member of the elite Huckablock list.)

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The commentary on Huck’s action is rough.


Cartoonist Marlette has also whacked Huckabee in an op-ed piece for the Pensacola paper.

In recent years, the Huckster has revealed his true identity as a closeted big-government elitist by placing himself at the center of a legal scheme to use the power of government to ban citizens from the once-public beaches in front of his house. That’s not something any human should advocate for, let alone a conservative. Yet Huckabee and a small gaggle of other rich beachfront homeowners claim the God-created Gulf shores are now their personal “private property.”

 

Forget Christ’s Beatitudes. Mikey boy has replaced them with the Huckabeeatitudes: “Blessed are the millionaire mansion owners, for they shall inherit the beach.

Marlette recalls the 2018 Huckabee epistle the newspaper obtained in which he lamented dog poop and rubbers found on his beach, along with young people drinking and …..

At one point, he even described witnessing a sexual encounter atop our shimmering emerald coast waters. “Two weeks ago, a young couple stripped naked and conducted various sex acts including intercourse on a YOLO board in clear sight of the beach in front of my home at 2 in the afternoon…”

 

“Various” sex acts? Exactly how long did you stare at them, Mike? You cheeky preacher, you!

Marlette isn’t a lawyer, but his Tweet might inspire the Huckster to file a complaint with the society of newspaper cartoonists, or somebody.