"Evolution is an interesting subject. I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life. I think that God created the Earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution." - President George W. Bush on ABC News

"Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality." - Jon Stewart, debating Mike Huckabee on the subject of gay marriage, on The Daily Show (clip of entire episode via Hulu.com)

"I'd never been an outsider in a film. I very much felt like the white Jewish girl and it was the first time I had ever been the minority on the set... I could see an Italian family on screen, I could see a Jewish family on screen. You could just fill in the blank, because family is family." - Debra Messing, discussing her role as a Jewish woman who marries into a Latino family in the film Nothing Like the Holidays, to Reuters

"I'm so happy! Everything they do, from smiling to crying, feels like a blessing. Being a father feels amazing. This has been the most spiritual moment in my life." - Ricky Martin, talking about his newborn twin sons, in People

"It's a nice opportunity at a reasonable price. Man, I shoulda worn my kippa tonight. That would have done so much damage." - Busta Rhymes, after performing at a benefit for Friends of the IDF, in the New York Observer

"I'm not a humble musician, but I am a humble human being, I have perspective, I have God in my life. [In the band] we talk a lot about spirituality and about why God made us musicians and why we’re here to do what we do. And we have decided in our estimation that God put us here to try new things, and be innovators." - Billy Corgan, also in the New York Observer

"I am a believer in God, and I am a Christian. And it’s by the grace of God that I’ve made it this far, to live to be 44 years old. I truly believe that my success is directly tied to God’s work, which is rescuing, motivating, inspiring, and uplifting people of all races and from all different communities." - Food Network star Chef Jeff, on Beliefnet.com

"I was born to parents who had no interest in religion, grew up atheist, and have finally found some point of connection only through the writing of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. In Kane, I can play with the grandiose language of the Bible while telling a story about fighting monsters." - Comic book artist and editor Scott Allie, discussing his new project Solomon Kane on MTV.com

"Ryan Seacrest Is Our Yenta." - headline on PerezHilton.com

For those who are struck by the dangerously corrosive left-wing secularMike Huckabee: Is this man part of John McCain's "Christian problem"? cosmopolitanism inherent in the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim fifth columnist who must be stopped at all costs, Michael Farris offers solace. A former Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Virginia and current Chancellor of Patrick Henry College, a private college for Christian home-schoolers (fully accredited as of April 2007!), Farris has a large following among Virginia Evangelicals. And in that community, Bob Novak reports, Farris is promoting "the biblical justification for an Obama plague-like presidency," in rejection of John McCain and the GOP.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. According to Novak's sources, Mike Huckabee is secretly in league with Farris and other elements of the Christian "bitter end opposition" hoping to sabotage McCain's candidacy. How will they do that? So far, it's unclear. And with just five months and change left until the election, they'd better figure out a plan soon, if they're going to manage to call down the Obama-plague upon the heads of the wicked (it's mentioned in Revelation, somewhere between the fifth and sixth trumpets, IIRC.)

Not to cast any aspersions on Novak's sources, but WTF? As Ross Douthat notes, the idea that Huckabee --- who you may remember from a few months back as not only an amiable sweetheart with an occasional retrograde view, not only a loyal Republican soldier, but also the eager president of the John McCain fan club --- is furtively plotting McCain's demise, doesn't pass the laugh test. But worse than that, does an Evangelical anti-McCain vanguard even make any theological sense? Either McCain is the closet liberal abortion-and-spic-lovin' traitor his enemies on the right make him out to be, or he isn't. Either way, vote for McCain. That provides a hedge just in case he stops what another Republican bitter-ender has called the "genocide [of] the wombs" of American women (at least as effectively as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush), and otherwise, McCain offers almost the same presidency-as-biblical-plague value as Obama.

How did former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee win in Georgia when he could not win in South Carolina or Florida?

One reason: Neal Boortz.

The king of Atlanta talk radio for nearly thirty years -- nobody has neared his ratings since Sean Hannity in the early 1990s -- Boortz popularized the "Fair Tax" in a bestselling book. The basic idea is to replace the income tax with a national sales tax.

Boortz has annoyed the religious right for years, but last year a funny thing happened: Mike Huckabee, a candidate known for his liberal economics, needed a conservative talking point for his campaign. He decided to co-opt Boortz's plan so that the Republican base would not accuse him of taxing and spending if he were elected. Huckabee also dropped his proposal for a federal indoor smoking ban, which Republicans (and Boortz) abhorred. But it was his use of Boortz's tax plan that endeared Huckabee to Georgia voters.

Ironically Boortz has long bashed the anti-abortion lobby for its heavy-handed tactics, and opposes using the Constitution to enforce morality, whereas Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to "God's standards."

But Boortz is championing the Huckster, which means more votes for the latter and more book sales for the former. Crass but effective -- for both men.

Super Tuesday was a clear victory for Sen. John McCain, who now has 300 more delegates than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. After the landslide McCain boasted, "Although I've never minded the role of the underdog ... I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner." (Apparently McCain is now using the Royal "We.")

On the Democratic side things are far less certain. Sen. Hillary Clinton captured the big prizes -- California and New York -- but Sen. Barack Obama scored more delegates. Major media outlets are crowning Hillary as the Super Tuesday winner, but she had previously sworn to have the nomination locked up by now. Time is much kinder to Obama, and a possible Gore/Edwards endorsement could seal the deal.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee performed much better than expected, capturing many states in the South. Prior to Super Tuesday prominent analysts believed that Huckabee would drop out of the race today, but he has vowed to continue his campaign, angering the Romney camp because splitting the vote makes McCain's cakewalk that much cakier.

(In related news, at this very moment Mike Huckabee moaned with a drool-oozing grin: "Mmmmmmm.... caaaaaake....")

The voters have spoken....

Annnnnnnnnnd they're still speaking. A victor has been declared in only one state, West Virginia, where Mike Huckabee has secured the Republican delegates. The Romney campaign accused Huckabee and McCain of striking a "shady" deal to deprive the Mormon millionaire of votes. Romney also compared McCain to former Sen. Bob Dole, the failed 1996 GOP nominee. 

Obama has increased his prospects by nine percent since yesterday. He and Hillary are equally likely -- 49 and 50 percent respectively -- to secure the most votes. But voters in liberal strongholds Los Angeles and New Jersey have had trouble voting due to missing and malfunctioning machines. 

If you truly have no life, you can look at this slide show of polling places. At least it beats looking at the crumbling stock market. Will it even matter whom we elect when everyone resorts to cannibalism?

Whether admitting he didn't know anything about the National Intelligence Estimate that reported that Iran had not had a program to develop nuclear weapons since 2003 after it had been plastered all over the media for days, or describing his ideal foreign policy as a triangulation between Thomas Friedman and Frank Gaffney, Mike Huckabee has had a difficult time faking expertise on foreign policy issues. Still, good Christian that he is, Huckabee soldiers on -- on to the pages of the Jerusalem Post, to offer his sophisticated understanding of the Holocaust and to accuse Barack Obama of being an appeasenik.

On the first count, Huckabee uses his daughter's trip to Yad Vashem as his proxy:

At the end of our visit, Sarah went to the guest book and wrote simple words that I will never forget: "Why didn't somebody do something?"

That is all she wrote, but with those words, I knew that, in her own way, she "got it."

She sure did. "Why didn't somebody do something?" is all you need to know about the Holocaust -- and also the historical roots of anti-Semitism, the nineteenth century nationalism that led to the unifications of Germany and Italy and persisted into various right wing clubs and societies, the rise of mass ideologies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the widespread success of the Dolchstosslegende in Germany, the fear of revolutionary communism that disposed the remnants of Europe's anciens regimes to ally with right-wing populism, the Catholic Church's embrace of Franco and the western powers' fecklessness during the Spanish Civil War, the unpunished genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey, and the overall sense of the impotence of democracy during the thirties -- but except for all that, Sarah got it.

But of course, Huckabee isn't just interested in teaching Israelis Holocaust history; he's also got an axe to grind. To wit, he finds deeply troubling "Senator Obama's desire to 'hold a summit in the Muslim world' and "to listen to the 'concerns' of these nations." And rightly so. The first step to negotiating any long-term middle-Eastern peace is a blanket refusal to negotiate with any middle-Eastern countries.

Incidentally, Huckabee may be in better company than he knows. The folks at Commentary incisively noted Barack Obama's sinister commitment to an "even-handed approach" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sweet Odin's raven, the man has clearly not absorbed the lessons of Yad Vashem.

As for the underlying question of why Huckabee would bother to write an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post in the middle of a presidential campaign --- my guess is he had some recollection of evangelicals' support for Israelis, but managed to get the order wrong.

Last week I appeared on MSNBC to discuss political humor. Apparently I was supposed to analyze campaign bloopers instead of making jokes. The segment turned into something of a train wreck. (At least I looked terrific!)

By the way, the second McCain joke was unplanned, uncalled for and I actually feel bad about it. Seriously, I've lost sleep. Senator John McCain is an American hero and I am a sissy, spoiled bitch who deserves to get his ass kicked. Please, sir, punch me in the face -- it would be an honor.

Slate recently pointed out that Senator Hillary Clinton has some things in common with Tracy Flick, the protagonist of Election. But who do the other '08 candidates remind us of?

RUDY GIULIANI is Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit: a balding, bespectacled man who worked in law enforcement in the ‘80s, inspired fear in millions, and surrounded himself with weasels.

BARACK OBAMA is Peter Pan: Rival campaigns claim that Obama’s high-minded promises of “hope” and “change” instill “false hopes” in voters, but the youthful senator is not afraid to think “wonderful thoughts,” and hope that his campaign takes flight just like the hero of this "fairy tale."

MITT ROMNEY is Gordon Gekko from Wall Street: Eager to show off his business experience as global stock markets continue to plummet, the former CEO is touting his management background and extolling his personal fortune. He will also say anything to win. “Greed is good”? What do the focus groups say?



JOHN MCCAIN is Popeye: McCain spent last summer headed for disaster: He flopped in the polls, lacked in donations, and was widely considered a sad, beaten old man. But the grizzled Navy vet has enjoyed a boost of last-minute strength: Victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina. If a single phrase sums up McCain, whether you like him or not, it’s “I am what I am." (This comparison has been noted elsewhere).



JOHN EDWARDS is Atticus Finch: Those legal chops. That southern voice. The strident progressive outlook. The hair. Why, it's none other than the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird. Isn't he lovely?



RON PAUL is Dale Gribble from King of the Hill. As a gun-loving libertarian with a Texan accent, Paul has quite a bit in common with this fictional redneck. Heck, Gribble is a hysterical conspiracy nut, and a good number of Paul supporters are 9/11 Truthers.




MIKE HUCKABEE is Dewey Cox from Walk Hard : With his rock star aspirations, friendly blank stare and deep southern drawl, the former Arkansas governor reminds us of this Alabama golden boy.

 

 

DENNIS KUCINICH is Rick Moranis: Kucinich has much in common with the Rick Moranis character from the 1993 music video “Tomorrow’s Girls.” They are both perceived as geeks, they both score with women who are out of their leagues, and both have spotted a UFO. The resemblance is out of this world.

Constitution: Not written in invisible ink This week we salute Cavanaugh, who responded to Helen Jupiter’s Words or Turds post about how weird and scary Mike Huckabee can be. In regards to abortion and gay marriage, Huckabee said:

"I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards, rather than try to change God's standards."

Here's Cavanaugh's take:

Mike Huckabee has already changed the words of the Living G-d for political advancement—although he's certainly not the first to have done so—but he has not yet changed the Constitution—and not for want of desire to. So changing the words of the Living G-d must be easier than changing the Constitution. For the first, you just sit around and listen to your own arrogance and hatred drown out the voice of G-d; for the second, you've got to convince an awful lot of people to buy the same delusional bullshit your arrogance and hatred has dreamed up.

 

Sad but true. It’s definitely a credit to the Constitution that one person’s arrogance and hatred can’t make much impact on it. On the other hand, see current President…

Whenever a politician, pundit or celebrity says something amazingly stupid, offensive or naive, "The Gaffe Factory" is here to document it.

This week we have a gem from Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, explaining why he would outlaw abortion and gay marriage (italics mine):

"It's an issue that goes to the very heart of our civilization of all people being equal, endowed by their creator with alienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Gay, Pro-Choice Squirrel Reacts: to Huckabee's words Welcome to the first installment of Words or Turds, where each week, we'll bring you a money quote on God, faith, religion, or any number of other shadowy concepts. It's up to you to decide and explain whether they're words or turds. This week, because he's just got so much to say, here are two gems from from Republican wannabe-president Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee on the problems of the Constitution, as it relates to and deals with issues of abortion and gay marriage:

"I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards, rather than try to change God's standards."

Huckabee on why he feels so at home in South Carolina:

“South Carolina’s a great place for me. I know how to eat grits. I speak the language. We even know how to talk about eating fried squirrel. We’re on the same wavelength. I bet you never did this: When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper, because that was the only thing they’d let us use in the dorms, and we would fry squirrel in a popcorn popper in our dorm rooms.”

Possible Tuesday Taste Test recipe? Perhaps! But for now, we're more interested to know whether you think Huckabee is a man of words or turds. This one's a real head-scratcher, right?

Christian Right leaders generally insist that the Constitution isn't a secular document, and that separation of church and state, as Pat Robertson inimitably put it "is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore." Well, Mike Huckabee disagrees. He thinks the Constitution is an artifact of heathenism. Fortunately, the Huckster intends to do something about our founders' moral laxity:

I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards.

Non-Christian Right apologists for the Christian Right often complain that charges of theocracy and coinages like "Christianism" are simplistic and unfair. This epistle would seem to resolve the matter, at least as far as Huckabee is concerned, would it not? 

Barack Obama: He has 99 problems, bitch ain't one.On the Left: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have called a ceasefire over the race issue. Hillary had previously said that Martin Luther King, Jr. wouldn't have accomplished his goals without President Lyndon Johnson, who was (get this!) white. Hillary's staffers accused Obama's campaign of distorting her remarks. Former President Bill Clinton described Obama's supposed superior judgment on Iraq as a "fairy tale," and many African-Americans felt that Clinton was referring to the notion of a black president -- which isn't crazy considering that a Clinton aide described Obama as voters' "imaginary hip black friend." Meanwhile, Obama entered a rally accompanied by the lyrics: "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one." The political guru Dick Morris, occasional toe-suckler (seriously, how the fuck does this guy have a career?), argues that John Edwards should end his candidacy like Bill Richardson, so that he might boost Obama's chances of winning the nomination. Another hopeless candidate, Dennis Kucinich, won his lawsuit to appear in tonight's debate. (Kucinich is fun, but he can't rock a mic like Mike Gravel.)

This week's winner: Clinton -- but she's playing dirty.

On the Right: Rudy Giuliani is in T-R-O-U-B-L-E. The former New York mayor is unable to stay ahead of John McCain in the polls and can't afford to pay his own staffers. Ron Paul is dead. Mitt Romney, who has money to spare (you sure save a lot of cash when you never purchase booze or pornography), is investing heavily in TV advertisements to regain his status as front runner. (A Mormon president? Isn't that kind of a fairy tale?) Mike Huckabee pandered to pro-lifers in South Carolina by visiting a "pregnancy counseling center." He also proclaimed that wives should "submit" to their husbands, and wouldn't answer whether he believes that only Christians go to heaven. But he has God's digits, so he should know.

This week's winner: McCain -- but his comeback is very fragile, and he looks awful.

At the GOP debate I didn't see last night, Mike Huckabee said this:

“The Air Force has a saying that says if you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target,” he said. “I’m catching the flak; I must be over the target.”

Matt Yglesias has a chuckle and responds:

This is basically a form of affirming the consequent. If you're over the target, you'll catch flak and Huckabee is catching flak "therefore" he must be over the target.

Except, no it isn't. Affirming the consequent is reasoning if p then q, q, therefore p, which is a corrupted form of modus ponens: if p then q, p, therefore q. That's not what's going on here. Let's say p = x is not catching flack, and q = x is not over the target. Huckabee is denying the antecedent: if p then q, not p, therefore not q; this is a corrupted form of modus tollens: if p then q, not q, therefore not p.

Incidentally, the Air Force is wrong. Not taking flak doesn't imply not being over the target: for example, you could be over the target when the flak cannon malfunctions, in which case you'd be not taking flak, but over the target. Huckabee, it turns out, is accidentally right because of a true modus ponens argument: if you're catching flack, you're over the target; he's catching flack, therefore....

The moral: If you want to make fun of hillbilly logic, it's probably a good idea to doublecheck your own work. Just saying.

In the run-up to the start of the primary season, my fellow Brit blogger Andrew Sullivan somehow managed to endorse both John McCain and Ron Paul as the least worst alternatives in an uninspiring GOP field (eventually plumping for Paul).  But despite nominally being a conservative, there’s no doubt where Sullivan’s main hopes for the presidency rest; a series of gushing articles in recent weeks (most notably in December’s Atlantic magazine) confirm him as a fully signed-up Obamaniac. On his own blog, Sullivan even describes “what can only be called euphoria from America's allies and friends around the world at the prospect of an Obama presidency”. That strikes me as something of an exaggeration, to put it mildly, but there is no doubt that the eyes of the world are glued to this US election like no other that I can remember.

Of course, it’s not simply, or even mostly, down to Obama (whom my spellchecker obstinately insists on trying to rename ‘Osama’ – expect Fox to use that excuse some time soon). In fact, there are a number of reasons for the heightened interest. First and most obvious, the race is incredibly hard to call. A week or two ago the Dem nomination was Hillary’s to lose; at time of writing this she may be only hours from (effectively) being out. The Republicans, meanwhile, have eschewed the boy-girl matchup in favour of an all-male threeway; a sweaty tangle of shiny teeth, macho postures and barking mad attack ads that most outsiders find at once utterly baffling and totally compelling (Chuck Norris? I mean, what?).

Second, and probably equally obvious now I think about it, a lot of people over here would get excited about a sheep’s bladder on a stick if it was running to replace the current incumbent. Now, I have no time whatsoever for the kneejerk Bush-hatred of the European Left, which blames this administration, directly or indirectly, for everything from Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to David Beckham’s knackered knee; but you don’t have to be a alfalfa-munching Kos reader to see that most of the world will breathe a hearty sigh of relief in 54 weeks’ time. Of course, as most of the runners and riders are relatively unknown beyond your shores, observers of all political stripes can pin their own hopes and hobby-horses onto Bush’s departure; the new guy is going to disappoint a lot of people very quickly. But for the time being, people are – if not exactly “euphoric”, in Sullivan’s phrase – certainly optimistic. 

However, I think there’s something else at work here, too. The typical supercilious European view of the US political system (shared by many in Britain) is that it’s irredeemably broken; a messy combination of special interests, religious nutjobs and insane amounts of money weighing down a drawn-out process that seems to take about three years, and which usually conspires to pick the wrong guy anyway (and it is always a guy - and a Protestant white guy, at that), and then holds him hostage to the lobby groups who got him elected (big oil, the labour unions, the NRA and – of course – the Israel lobby).

Like all caricatures, it only works because there’s more than a hint of truth informing the broad brush strokes. But there’s a growing realisation that behind our sneering view of American-style democracy, something else is at work. There is, at least on the face of it, a healthy optimism about the political process in the US – yes, yes, it may only be skin-deep, and challenged daily by candidates whose interest lies in trading on fear rather than hope, but it still makes a refreshing change from the world-weary scepticism with which we greet every utterance from our own politicians in this country. Part of that is down to the possibility that a year from now we will see the first black President, or first woman. We beat you to the latter, of course, but our politics is still every bit as dominated by average white guys as it once was.

And worse is the stifling uniformity that has descended on the British political system in the post-ideological age. Tony Blair apes Conservative themes and policies, Gordon Brown poses with the hated [by him] Thatcher in Downing Street and steals Tory policies for short-term gain, and for their own part our Conservatives go out of their way to try and appropriate the rhetoric and language of the “progressive” left. To witness the slightly archaic system of caucuses and primaries that seem to be propelling Barack Obama past the slick Clinton machine, or seeing Huckabee giving Mitt Romney a richly deserved kicking in Iowa despite spending a fraction of his rival’s budget, is inevitably to look at our own stagnant political systems - in which we are lectured by increasingly similar-looking social democrats, who look like they should be selling homes but whom we would not dream of inviting into our own - and wonder if we’ve got things so great here.

I’m not starry-eyed. The influence of money in American politics is real, pernicious, and growing. Turnouts are rotten (barely over 50%). Mainstream candidates continue to make statements and espouse positions that I find extraordinary. I don't care if Chuck Norris supports him; Huckabee's still a twat. The culture war rages on, and the country is as polarised as at any time since the 70’s. Beneath the superficial religious, racial and gender diversity of the headline acts, the undercard is mostly the same old mixture of hacks, lawyers, blowhards, bored millionaires, fuckwits and careerists with sharp haircuts and dull minds. “Change” is a slogan, a punchline; not a reality. Would someone like Obama be that change, as a growing number of people seem to think? I doubt it. But then I’m a cynic. Not for the first time in history, though, there are millions of people all over the world watching America; watching, and waiting, and wondering.

 

In the Christmas Eve edition of the Washington Post, Peter Wehner furrows a brow or two over the ascendancy of Mike Huckabee in the Republican primary. Wehner is worried that Mike Huckabee's aw-shucks sectarianism is "fraught with danger" and threatens to cross the line dividing "[t]he City of Man and the City of God." I agree: Huckabee is running on Christianity plus the Fair Tax, and the excellent chance he has of winning the Republican nomination fairly strongly cements the fact that one of our major political parties stands for Christianity first and everything else second. Unlike me, however, Wehner spent 2001-2007 working on speechwriting and strategy (i.e. directly under Karl Rove) for the George W. Bush White House; before that, he was employed in Bill Bennett's policy shop; before that, he was Bill Bennett's speech writer.

You might think, therefore, that Wehner is recounting a Damascene moment, repenting before the disembodied spirit of Thomas Paine for having spent a career persecuting him. You'd be wrong. To hear Wehner recount American political history, for 230 years, the leaders of our fair republic, though deeply religious to a man, and allowing their political beliefs to be informed by faith, nevertheless steadfastly rendered unto Caesar, respecting the separation between church and state. Then suddenly, out of nowhere --- ex nihilo, like the spirit of God upon the face of the waters --- came Mike Huckabee to lead his flock into green dogpatches.

Here is Wehner at his most breathtakingly self-unaware:

They [Huckabee's periodic outbursts of Christian identity politics] are certainly different in degree, and even in kind, from what President Bush, an evangelical Christian, has said. And taken together, they raise a concern: Is Mike Huckabee, a man of extremely impressive political gifts and shrewdness, playing the Jesus card in a way that is unlike anything we have quite seen before?

Wrong on all counts. Huckabee's Christian politicking is precisely alike in kind to Bush's. The difference, if there is a meaningful one, between Huckabee's exhortation to "celebrate the birth of Christ" and Bush's declaration that Christ is his favorite philosopher, between Huckabee's self-appointment as a Christian leader and Bush's "God, guns, and gays" electoral strategy, between Huckabee's flying cross and Bush's coded references to Dred Scott and activist judges, is a difference only in degree. Where Bush used a dog-whistle to rally the yahoos, Huckabee uses a trumpet; the underlying principle is the same for both of them.

The subtext of Wehner's message, of course, is that despite the over-the-top, revival tent treacliness, Bush (or at least his inner circle) never really bought any of it. Which is believable enough. But it's thanks to the diligent work of Wehner and his colleagues over many years that Huckabee's crusade is getting significant traction in the first place. If he wants to take it all back now, one of the steps to his recovery is to apologize to the rest of us.

This being Christmas Eve, I'd like to close with a special yuletide message, from my hearth to yours. Pay extra attention to the last 30 seconds. God bless us everyone.

Last night, on the heels of Joe Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain, I made the case that when Joe Lieberman gives his inevitable address to the Republican National Convention, he'll be able to argue plausibly that he didn't leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left him.

Of course, Lieberman's embrace of McCain in the primary season (thereby rejecting not some but all Democratic candidates) ratchets up the likelihood of Lieberman not only speaking before the RNC, but intervening in the general election in a quasi-official way, say as a kind of Republican shadow cabinet officer. The extreme end of this thought, which no doubt we'll be hearing more of from Beltway journalists if from nowhere else, is Lieberman as the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee. That being the case, it's worth revisiting Bill Kristol's November editorial in favor of Lieberman as the GOP's veep pick. Let others dispute the wisdom of Kristol's argument; what caught my eye in re-reading the piece was the relevance of the following claim for the other big dynamic in the Republican primary contest:

McCain-Lieberman, Thompson-Lieberman, Romney-Lieberman, Huckabee-Lieberman --- those sound like winning tickets to us. [emphasis mine]

Kristol leaves Giuliani off the list since Giuliani presumably can't afford a pro-choice running mate (but why not though?; if the Republicans choose Giuliani despite his manifest unacceptability to social conservatives, will picking Lieberman really affect their disposition to vote for him in the general election --- it's not as if there's another pro-choicer whom any Republican would plausibly consider for the vice presidency). Notice who does make the list, though: Mike "Dogpatch" Huckabee, from whom sophisticated urbane conservatives are fleeing as fast as their legs can carry them, and whose boom is prompting calls for a bottom-up reappraisal of conservatism's proper attitude towards both the value of intellecual rigor and expertise, and the danger of overt political religiosity.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Bill Kristol speaks for the whole of the Weekly Standard, let alone the whole of the American right, but many of the conservative pundits, bloggers, and intellectuals currently losing it over the prospect of a Huckabee nomination hold views relevantly similar to Kristol's own (e.g. Charles Krauthammer, David Frum, and Stephen Hayes lampooning "Huckaplomacy" in the pages of the Weekly Standard itself). Refer back to Kristol's boosterism for the Lieberman-for-VP concept, and his specific locution: "Huckabee-Lieberman" sounds "like a winning ticket" not just to him, but "to us." So presumably Kristol is speaking for someone other than himself.

What happened? It was less than one month ago that the Kristol piece came out, and Huckabee-Lieberman was an idea that was not merely tolerable, but winning, to Kristol et al. Now that Huckabee is poised to make a credible run for the nomination, the very same folks who'd love Lieberman as the Republican VP choice are falling on top of each other to anathematize Huckabee (Peter Robinson, one-upping his colleague Lisa Schiffren, is now aping Redneck-speak).

Now, someone could object that I'm too focused on a throwaway line in one piece by Kristol about another subject entirely, but that's just the point: up until the moment when Huckabee's candidacy posed a threat to the GOP establishment, the GOP establishment was happy to throw a rhetorical bone to the snake-handling crowd now and then, comfortable in the knowledge that they'd never have to lend any other form of support.

The furious anger the NR, WS, etc. crowd is pumping out at Huckabee is breathtaking in its naivete: they really seem to have thought that they could win by dangling shiny objects in front of the yahoos (gay marriage bans, anti-abortion amendments) indefinitely. Gentlemen and ladies, putting massive military and police bureaucracies, nuclear weapons, and the welfare state under the control of theocratic ignoramuses turns out to be a really, really bad idea, doesn't it? Well, don't blame yourselves, it's not as if you could or should have foreseen the consequences of excusing, empowering, and mobilizing politicized Christian evangelism.

I watched a few minutes of the Republican primary debate today (I couldn't handle more than a few minutes), and happened to stumble upon the following question for all the candidates (slight paraphrase): "In 30 seconds, could you say whether the rich, the middle class, or the poor, are paying a disproportionate amount in taxes, and why?

Mike Huckabee's answer (again, slight paraphrase): "I propose a Fair Tax system --- because it won't make the rich poor, but it just might help make the poor rich."

Really, what can one say? Even making the (completely speculative and probably false) assumption that shifting to a national sales tax would be revenue neutral, by what mechanism could Huckabee imagine that poor people, simply by paying taxes against consumption rather than income, would be propelled into greater wealth? By magic?

Such a combination of a fantastical sermon-on-the-mount inversion and an embarrassing lack of rudimentary comprehension of economics and public policy is more or less a distillation of Huckabee down to his essence. His candidacy is premised on reveling in knowing absolutely nothing, except that all things are possible in the Lord. Want to lower taxes, drastically increase social spending, balance the budget, simultaneously throw out all the Mexican illegal immigrants and give their kids financial aid, reduce energy consumption to zero (note: this would presumably end our obesity problem as it would require us to starve to death), craft a foreign policy both Tom Friedman and Frank Gaffney would approve of? No problem, it can all be done if you believe by virtue of the absurd.

Ross Douthat has gotten a lot of traffic for this post, presenting the lottery paradox that is the Republican primary this year. (The lottery paradox: you believe of each ticket that it's a loser, but also that one of them is a winner.)

And for most of the candidates, it's true --- they're bound to lose. Romney can't win because evangelicals can't stomach Mormonism, and he was a moderate technocrat who was to Ted Kennedy's left on abortion until last week (incidentally, that's why I'll vote for him if it's Romney vs. Clinton). McCain can't win because he's against torture, for sane immigration policy, and for campaign finance reform (I'm with him on two of the three --- I'll let you guess where I disagree) --- each of them potential disqualifiers in a Republican primary, all three of them together effectively ruling him out. Giuliani can't win because, when you run a city the size of New York as if it's your personal fiefdom, criminal corruption becomes part of the job description. Thompson can't win because because he doesn't want to be running.

But Huckabee --- Huckabee can win, pace Ross. What are his downsides? Here are Stephen Bainbridge's reasons for opposing the Huckster:

1. He’s a wowser [Oz slang for someone who gets a kick out of denying pleasure to others]...

2. He’s a religious bigot...

3. He sounds pretty homophobic...

4. Speaking of respect for life, Huckabee supports the death penalty...

5. Speaking of hardened criminals, is Wayne Dumond Huckabee’s Willie Horton?...

6. He’s clueless on foreign policy...

7. Huckabee’s a serial tax hiker...

8. He’s probably a closet economic populist....

Those are all reasons I won't vote for Huckabee. In a Republican primary, #1-#4 are definite assets, #6-#8 have to do with knowledge of policy that voters don't have and will never base their decisions on, and #5, while embarrassing, doesn't play into a narrative of Huckabee as a wimpy liberal (and so isn't his Willie Horton). In other words, in the Republican primary, Huckabee's many, many bugs are features.

He's hardly a lock, but if Huckabee trips up, it won't be because he's running an amateurish and faith-based policy shop. Quite the contrary. You'll often hear pundits express frustration with the fact that candidates won't provide specifics to flesh out their proposals. This is a misplaced frustration since 1) nothing a presidential candidate proposes during a campaign will be enacted in its campaign form and 2) nobody besides pundits and a tiny, extremely educated sliver of the electorate bases his or her voting preferences on finely (or even coarsely) grained policy distinctions. At best, what happens is something like: "Well, Candidate X is for improved education, health care, border security, victory in the war. I'm for all those things. He's got my vote." More pessimistically, if Philip Converse was right, voters don't base their decisions on policy positions at all.

The one obstacle for Huckabee that may prove insuperable is that the GOP establishment really doesn't like him. (Mitt Romney was a guest on Hannity & Colmes tonight, and Hannity took the opportunity to ask Romney what he thought of Huckabee's Dukakis-style furlough programs.) I don't get the hostility. In so many ways, Huckabee is Bush's prodigal son.

UPDATE: Okay, this is a real problem for Huckabee.