Huckabee: ‘I see a recording contract’ in Obama’s future

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a GOP presidential candidate, on Sunday gave President Obama’s eulogy for one of the victims of the Charleston, S.C., church massacre a mixed review.

“Well, I think so much of it was brilliant,” Huckabee said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” “And by the way he has a wonderful voice, so post-presidential – I see a recording contract in his future.”

{mosads}Huckabee said there were times in Obama’s remarks on Friday, however, when the president “strayed into more of a political agenda rather than a true eulogy.”

“I presided at a lot of funerals 30 years ago and before, and I never used it as an occasion to do anything other than to focus on the person and the qualities of that person who was deceased and not to make it a time of cause,” said Huckabee, a former Baptist minister.

Huckabee said South Carolina officials, including Gov. Nikki Haley (R), made the right decision to call for the removal of a Confederate flag from the grounds of the state Capitol.

“She and Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham stepped up and said if this is hurting people, if this is an offense it’s not worth it to be so divisive, he said.

“And I think it’s important to note – and I know this will cause a lot of angst, but it was Republicans who stepped up and made this happen,” Huckabee added. “And let me give tribute to David Beasely, the Republican governor who back in the mid-90s also attempted to do this and essentially lost his reelection because of it.

“And so when people talk about that Republicans don’t care about race, I find that incredibly not only offensive, but George I find it just wrongheaded,” he said.