November 30, 2007

News Flash : Former Arkansas Governor Veracity Challenged

The Man from Hope has described his illegal immigrant scholarship program as follows:

I supported a bill that would have allowed those children who had been in our schools their entire school life the opportunity to have the same scholarship that their peers had who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same classrooms. They couldn't just move in in their senior year and go to college. ... [It] said that if you'd sat in our schools from the time you're 5 or 6 years old and you had become an A-plus student, you completed the core curriculum, you were an exceptional student, and you also had to be drug and alcohol free, and the other provision, you had to be applying for citizenship.
Wish I could say I was shocked to find out most of that isn't true:
Actually, the bill Huckabee pushed for in his 2005 State of the Union address did not apply only to "those children who had been in our schools their entire school life." It required only three years in an Arkansas high school to be eligible. And students did not have to be "applying for citizenship," but rather they had to sign an affidavit stating their intent to do so in the future. All students who apply for state scholarships must "certify that they are drug-free" and "pledge to refrain from alcohol" if they are under 21, just as Huckabee said. But they certainly don't have to be "an A-plus student." The state requires a solid "B" average (a 3.0 average on a 4.0 scale). And the state may reduce that to a 2.5 average if sticking with the higher requirement "would unduly reduce the number of low-income or disadvantaged students who would otherwise be eligible for the program." That's a C-plus average.
On one issue after another, the Man from Hope has been displaying an unfortunate habit of playing fast and loose with the facts. I could be wrong, but I suspect that might become a liability if he doesn't get on the straight and narrow PDQ.

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 12:19 AM | |