• Mike Huckabee and his bass. (Thanks to Aaron Webb for the photo.)

How do you know when the presidential campaign season has begun? Ordinarily nice, honest people start lying nearly non-stop.

For example, Mike Huckabee has decided our president grew up in Kenya, despite ample evidence that he definitely did not.

From The Washington Post:

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee got his facts wrong when he claimed twice during an interview Monday that President Obama was raised in Kenya.

During an interview with The Steve Malzberg Show, Huckabee said the president, "having grown up in Kenya," would have a different - more hostile - perspective on the British:

I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, [is] very different than the average American.He repeated the claim, saying:

...if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.The Associated Press reports that a Huckabee adviser did not have an immediate explanation for Huckabee's comments.

Read the entire article, by Emi Kolawole, here.

Here we go again with the "you're different so you must be bad" rhetoric. Fuck that. We're all different. This idea that if you're not Mr. or Mrs. Whitebread you can't lead our country is bunkus.

The GOP can beat up on President Obama all they want for being half white and half black, they can pick on the fact that he was raised alternately by his single-mother and his white grandparents, that his father is from Kenya and the fact that he's lived in exotic places (like Hawaii — one of the 50 American states, in case you forgot).

What does that prove? Nothing. Never mind the fact that they're just making shit up. They're trying to create a class of worthy candidates and another of unworthy candidates. I'm sure this is exactly what Jesus would do, right Rev. Huckabee?

If these asshats would mingle with the American populace, not just their bobblehead followers and campaign contributors, they would see that a lot of people who live in America are mutts of one sort of another — meaning we're not all of anything, most of us are mixed in some way. They would also see that single-parent homes are the norm.

I'm really offended that they think otherwise. They're trying to accuse all of us who didn't grow up in idealistic, puritanical surroundings that we're "other," we're different and therefore less than.

"Other" is the new normal. Whitebread is what's out.

Enjoy your campaign, asshole.

Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes commentary on Creative Loafing's CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.