Former President Jimmy Carter came to the defense of the Obamas’ parenting skills in the wake of controversial criticism from potential 2016 candidate Mike Huckabee.
In a recent People magazine interview, Huckabee questioned the judgement of Barack and Michelle Obama because they allow their teenage daughters Sasha and Malia to listen to pop star Beyoncé.
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After admitting that the Obamas “are excellent and exemplary parents in many ways,” the conservative former Arkansas governor said “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 shielded from so many things — 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 Beyoncé, who has sort of a regular key to the door [of the White House].”
Carter, in an impromptu interview with the gossip website TMZ pushed back against the former Arkansas governor’s statement.
“I think the president is doing a good job,” Carter said, adding that he doesn’t “agree with much of what Mike Huckabee says.”
For his part, Huckabee has appeared fixated on faulting Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z with corrupting the minds and bodies of America’s youth. In his new book, “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,” he accuses Jay-Z of acting like a “pimp” when it comes to his wife, says Beyoncé’s lyrics are “obnoxious and toxic mental poison” and that her dance moves are “best left for the privacy of her bedroom.”
Huckabee recently quit his job as a Fox News host, leading to speculation that he may launch a longshot bid to win the 2016 GOP nomination for president. His book, which includes a chapter entitled “Bend over and take it like a prisoner!” is due in stores on Jan. 20.
Adam Howard