Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee clash over Beyonce, Bubbas and Bubbleville

Jan. 20, 2015 10:45 AM PT

Mike Huckabee made his ninth appearance on “The Daily Show” on Monday night, and much like his other appearances, he and host Jon Stewart had a lively disagreement of ideas. Much like frequent guest Bill O’Reilly, it seems like Stewart and Huckabee generally enjoy agreeing to disagree.

Huckabee, who recently quit his Fox News program in order to contemplate a possible run for president, was promoting his new book, “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy.”

“Go back and beg them for your job,” Stewart urged Huckabee. “You’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake. What are you doing?”

Huckabee laughed this off, but pretty quickly the gulf between Stewart’s world view and the former governor’s became readily apparent.

“That’s the view of the people in the Bubbleville that I talk about in this book,” Huckabee said.

“What, do you mean America?” Stewart shot back.

But Huckabee went on to explain the difference between the “Bubbleville” dwellers on the coasts and in the cities and the “Bubbas” who live in the more conservative fly-over states.

That cultural formulation is one that Stewart wholeheartedly rejected. He also accused Huckabee of seeing the so-called “Bubbas” as more favorable to the “Bubblevilles.” Huckabee rejected that argument, too.

But when it came to Huckabee’s criticisms of Beyonce, Stewart pressed the point.

“Beyonce is such a mega-talent,” Huckabee said. “She can do anything... She doesn’t have to be vulgar to set a trend.”

“What disturbs me about Beyonce, who is a role model to young girls -- do you know any parent who has a daughter that says, ‘Honey, if you make really good grades, someday when you’re 12 or 13, we’ll get you your own stripper poll.’”

Stewart retorted with a clip from Huckabee’s Fox News show with the former governor playing bass for Ted Nugent performing his sexually suggestive hit “Cat Scratch Fever.”

“It ain’t about bacteria,” Stewart said.

“You excuse that type of crudeness because you agree with his stance on firearms,” he continued. “You don’t approve of Beyonce because she seems alien to you. Maybe the problem is Bubba is in a bubble.”

Huckabee argued back that Nugent’s song was an “adult song geared for adults” and was never featured on the Grammys the way Beyonce’s work has been.

“My point is that you can’t single out a corrosive culture and ignore the one that you live in because you’re used to it,” Stewart said.

This back and forth went on long enough for “The Daily Show” to put the whole thing online in one of its “Extended Interviews,” but it still ended with a handshake.

Meaning, we’re probably going to see more Huckabee versus Stewart before long.

You can see the full argument here.

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