DES MOINES, Iowa — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has accused President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, of double standards in parenting, saying in an interview published Tuesday that the first family shelters its daughters from some things but allows them to listen to the music of Beyonce.
Huckabee recently stepped down from his role as host of a weekend program on Fox News Channel. He ran for president in 2008, considered running in 2012, and has said he’s weighing whether to seek the GOP nomination in 2016.
While promoting his new book, the former Baptist pastor told People magazine, “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 yet they don’t see anything that might not be suitable” in Beyonce’s lyrics. He also said Beyonce’s choreography is “best left for the privacy of her bedroom.”
In his book, Huckabee describes the Grammy Award-winning Beyonce’s lyrics as “obnoxious and toxic mental poison.” He also accuses Beyonce’s husband, rapper Jay-Z, of “exploiting his wife” like a “pimp.”
The first lady’s office declined to comment on Huckabee’s comments.
At a 2012, $40,000-per-ticket fundraiser in New York, the president thanked Beyonce and Jay-Z for their friendship.
“Beyonce could not be a better role model for my girls,” Obama said.
Beyonce sang at the president’s second inauguration as well as at the first lady’s 50th birthday party at the White House.
Huckabee’s latest book, titled God, Guns, Grits and Gravy, is full of criticism of Washington, New York and Hollywood and serves as a direct appeal to cultural conservatives, long part of his political base.