Huckabee Backtracks on Dissing Natalie Portman's "Out-of-Wedlock" Pregnancy

Presidential hopeful attempts to clarify his slam against Oscar winner for allegedly "glorifying" and "glamorizing" unmarried pregnancy

You diss a pregnant woman, you're gonna be taken to task. Ditto if you dare say a bad word about America's reigning sweetheart. Or the newly crowned Oscar winner. And if you should err so badly that you somehow manage to slam the one woman who encompasses all those things at once…well, your name is probably Mike Huckabee.

After blasting Natalie Portman for supposedly glamorizing and glorifying single motherhood (never mind that she has a committed fiancé in Benjamin Millepied) and sending a "troubling" and "distorted" message to our nation's youth, the former Republican governor of Arkansas is in full backtrack mode.

"I was asked about Oscar winner Natalie Portman's out-of-wedlock pregnancy," he explained on his blog, Huck PAC. "Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar and I am glad she will marry her baby's father. However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not 'slam' or 'attack' Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country."

At least, not unless you count this as a criticism: "Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have healthcare," which is what Huckabee said during a radio interview earlier this week that hit the mainstream media last night.

Huckabee clearly does not consider his comment as a slight, because he repeated himself, almost verbatim, in his clarification.

"My comments were about the statistical reality that most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death," he wrote. "That's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that society often glorifies and glamorizes the idea of having children out of wedlock."

So far Portman has chosen to stay above the fray; her rep did not immediately comment on either Huckabee's original comments or his blog post.

Of course, his point could just as easily have been made—and more aptly, as far as those stats go—by citing, say, Bristol Palin, who is working for a two-year degree and has no relationship with her baby daddy, instead of Natalie Portman, the Harvard graduate who is planning on marrying hers.

Wonder why he didn't go with that example?