When Conservatives Believe the New York Times On Huckabee

I listened to Ed Morrissey’s interview with Mike Hucakbee earlier tonight. Morrissey expressed his sympathy as someone who’d been through an interview with the New York Times. He said the Times interviewed him for half an hour and then pulled one quote out of context to make Morrissey sound like an idiot.

This brings up the latest volley in the case where the reporter denies Huckabee’s story:

Reached Wednesday in Cooperstown, N.Y., where he’s writing a book on the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Chafets told Politico: “I asked him the question about Mormonism and whether he thought it was a religion or a cult.

“He said it was a religion, and didn’t know much about it. There was a pause. Then he asked his question,” Chafets continued.

“He can spin it any way he wants. It was on the wires and picked up by candidates, and I can’t be accountable for that,” Chafets said, adding, “I hope that the article, as I wrote it, was entirely in context.”

Lieberman [Chafets' editor] said she also understood that Huckabee’s question “was an unbidden response.”

Said Mark Hemingway at the Corner: “If Chafets is to be believed, Huckabee’s defense doesn’t hold a lot of water.” If is the key word. Given all the stunts pulled by the Times in recent years, can it be believed? I don’t think so.

Logically, I doubt Huckabee would say something like that. It was clearly not intended to end up in print as the statement as a deliberate attack as the piece phrases it is a departure from Huckabee’s previous tact and clearly Huckabee was not prepared for the story. Sorry, I give Huck the benefit of the doubt, even though I’m not a supporter.

A Stupid Argument

Camp Huckabee seems to have trouble picking their spots. Jim Geraghty didn’t think that a guy with a theology degree would need information from a New York Times Reporter on Mormonism. Carter e-mailed Geraghty:

Jim,

Governor Huckabee doesn’t have a theology degree. He only spent a year in seminary.

Also, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t know much about the specific beliefs of the LDS church. There aren’t a lot of LDS members in Arkansas; they comprise just .007 percent of the population (about 20,000 out of 2,810,872 people). Most Southern evangelicals don’t have much exposure to that particular religion. Even in seminary you’re not likely to study the LDS faith unless you take a class on apologetics.

-Joe

When Geraghty pointed out that Huckabee had pointed to himself as the one man on the stage with a theology degree, Carter replied back:

Carter responded, “Good point. To me, a degree in theology requires a degree from a seminary. What the Governor has is a BA in Biblical Studies. Technically, that can be considered a “theology degree.” But its probably not what most people think of when they hear that term.”

Blogs for Thompson then gets in on the act:

Folks, a BA in Biblical Studies is considered by most people to be a “theology degree” in the general sense. By “theology degree”, most people mean a “religion degree”. Here we are with another Arkansas Governor and his staff trying to parse what the meaning of “is” is.

Throwing down the Clinton reference is low. What Carter was trying to get across is that Huckabee didn’t receive any training on Mormonism and again, I believe him. I talked to my wife who took 3 years of religion at a private university and I asked her if she remembered anything of what she learned about Mormonism in school. She informed me that they’d spent “0 minutes” covering Mormonism at her college. And I doubt with her remaining classes that Mormonism would have come up.

Taking a look at Ouachita University’s modern curriculum, the classes mostly focused within the realm of General Christianity. The one potential exception is World Religions, but my wife’s World Religion class had no information on Mormonism, focusing instead on the major world religions: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, etc.

It’s doubtful that a student leaving Ouachita University today has a solid grasp on Mormonism, let alone 30 years ago when Huckabee would have attended.

Giving A Governor a Bad Name

The media has highlighted a real issue with Huckabee and that his receipt of gifts. In 1999, he and his family received $112,000 in gifts. However, some of the things that are counted as gifts aren’t a huge concern. The $23,000 given by the inaugural committee for Janet Huckabee’s wardrobe wasn’t corrupting and part of the wardrobe was donated to the State museum. There were trips for Presidential Campaigns, trips for the party, trips for churches.

However, Mr. Jennings Osborne is another matter. The man gave an amazingly inappropriate amount of money to Mike Huckabee and was subsequently appointed to a Stadium Commission. Osborne spent an insane amount of money on Huckabee, buying $11,000 worth of clothes for him in one month alone, threw a $7500 party for the staff of the Executive mansion, spent $10,400 on flowers, and $11,700 on pastries.

There may be no quid pro quos, but at best, it shows poor judgment.

I do have to say the headline of the Blogs for Thompson Article is counter-productive, “Huckabee Felt Led to Receive as Governor of Arkansas.” as it comes across quite poorly to Christians. If Blogs for Thompson wants to drive more Christians to Huckabee,  they should keep taking subtle little swipes at his religion by calling him the pastor and using religious rhetoric in a mocking tone.

Yes, the blog is an unofficial grassroots effort, but as Ron Paul has shown, you do pay for supporters who make you look poorly, whether they’re on the payroll or not.

Video from the Mother

This video on the Wayne Dumond case poses a problem for Huckabee, with the mother of the woman who was killed by Dumond laying the blame at Huckabee’s feet. If it gains circulation, it could really hurt Huckabee in some quarters and there’s not much Huckabee can do.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFTdif_Lvsk[/youtube]

Just to Remind You

Fred Thompson’s official blog has a very clever post that makes fun of Huckabee’s apology to Mitt Romney by offering their own apology for exposing various parts of Mike Huckabee’s record. There’s only a slight chance of it backfiring as the apology was a relatively fine moment for Huckabee that allowed both he and Romney to show a mutual measure of class.

The reason for the post is that America is about to take a good 10 days off from the campaign and Thompson wants to leave an impression on voters about Huckabee. It’s a worthy gambit.

But Huckabee Still Leads

Huckabee has been battered, but he’s still holding strong with a solid lead in South Carolina:

Huckabee 24%
Thompson 17%
Giuliani 16%
Romney 16%
McCain 13%
Paul 11%

There’s bad news throughout the poll, and if the results look anything like this, they could be fatal for three campaigns. Romney, McCain, and Thompson all need to win South Carolina. McCain is in 5th place and at risk of finishing 6th behind Ron Paul, who is suddenly within striking distance of a solid finish.

Jim Geraghty has a warning for many of the Huckabashers:

I think that the folks shifting to Huckabee are establishing a gut-level connection, “he’s my guy. He gets my values.” And I don’t know whether Wayne Dumond, or the number of pardons, or in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, or the Cuba embargo or even increasing tax burdens — or any of the stuff in Fred’s “apology” — will break that gut-level connection.

No Monkeying Around

Fred Thompson got the endorsement of a conservative Christian leader whom I may or may not have vaguely heard of and Vermont Right to Life. The good news for Thompson is that not every Christian Conservative leader is signing up with Huckabee. The bad news is that at this time of year, pickings will be thin.

However, Thompson may be helped by his debate performance and his willingness to strike against the absurdity of the moderator:

At a post-debate campaign stop, Republican candidate Fred Thompson explained his reason for refusing to answer a debate question by a show of hands, calling it “monkey business.”

“I just decided that I wasn’t going to engage in any of this monkey business that they like to engage us on sometimes — making us look like trained monkeys reaching for peanut or something … 30 seconds is brief enough and when they try to reduce your answer to just a hand raise — I ‘aint going to play that game,” the former Tennessee senator said.

Thompson will do well if he can continue to show that same type of spark and spirit on the trail. It’s his only shot at catching fire.