Not Hardly . . .

I was going to open this post by pointing out that the discussion in the primaries seems to have gotten very serious of late. A combination, I think, of the Bhutto assassination and the fact that the casting of actual votes is very close. Then . . .

Double Speak . . .

Huckabee has spent weeks now denouncing negative campaigning, trying to play Mr. Nice-guy. Well, he gave that up over the weekend, big time:

In a stark change of tone just days before the Iowa caucus, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas on Saturday unleashed a barrage of attacks . . . .

But what is so much worse is the content of the attacks:

“If a person will become president by being dishonest, just remember, if he becomes president, he likely will not be honest on the job,” Huckabee told voters at a restaurant campaign stop.

So apparently distressed at Romney’s criticism, Huckabee refused even to commit to voting for Romney for president if the former Massachusetts governor wins the Republican nomination.

This argument is as old as religious competition: If you are losing the argument, demonize your competition.

Now, if you do not think this was designed to saw on the “Mormons lie” meme, you are hiding under a rock. This is code word stuff. We’ve never laid it out here because it’s fairly silly, but the argument goes basically that since Mormonism is “twisted” from creedal Christian doctrine, it is false and a lie and therefore people who believe it are “liars.” Now, of course, this presumes facts not in evidence, like the motivations of every Mormon out there, but that is irrelevant. This argument is as old as religious competition: If you are losing the argument, demonize your competition. I personally hate this form of argument because it demonstrates a lack of faith in my own view.

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Richard John Neuhaus

We Are The State

Bloomberg

(forked tongue alert!)

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Speaking of “Forked Tongue”

Huckabee goes negative

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Barrett Kalellis

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“The Problem with Huck”

The Arizona Republic doesn’t like Huckabee’s approach to his campaign. Their critique includes this:

His seemingly off-the-cuff comment about how little he knew of Mormons - “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” - was positively cringe-inducing. Huckabee is a candidate who is explicitly targeting a religious constituency, many of whom suspect members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (like, oh, his opponent, Mitt Romney) of apostasy. He might as well have hung a sign in an ad announcing, in wavering white letters, “Fear the Mormon!”

The Republic does like its home state Senator, John McCain.

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When it comes to religion and politics Huckabee seems to get all the play these days. That shows, first of all, the political wisdom of the inoculation effect that Romney has enjoyed by having The Question be in the air for so long now. Secondly, it demonstrates something we have contended here for a long time - everybody has been waiting to use this as a club against Evangelicals. Now that one has stuck his head up, they are coming after him hammer and tong, and at least in the case of his attacks on Romney’s faith, deservedly so.

Now, on the one hand, you have to admire [Huckabee’s] deft use of non-traditional means.

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Ramesh Ponnuru

Responding to Ignatius

Some interesting legal background

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Hoping all had a marvelous holiday! Lowell and I have been purposefully “out of the loop” for the last several days. As we present the news today, we have been very selective, this is not our usual “if it is written, we will link” approach.

Frankly, I am somewhat saddened that there is this much to talk about inside this blogs portfolio over this holiday. Why, just before Christmas I had a wonderful discussion with a Hindu friend about his family’s Christmas celebration. Did you know Christmas is a holiday, even in India? You would think this holiday would be the one where this kind of chatter would cease.

However, between front loaded primaries, and the willingness of some to win at all costs, the show continues. And so . . .

Let’s start on the left hand side of things…

Mitt — Huck — Mitt — Huck, there seems to be two ways to see this. One the one hand there is the all religions are the same approach:

But what enrages me is that increasingly they insist that their beliefs should become the law of the land. They want the power of the state to be used to force me and others who don’t share their beliefs to abide by their beliefs. By what right do these believers demand that the power of the state be used to enforce their particular moral views?

Now that is anti-religious bigotry and it says mountains about why we have to be careful here. That is the real enemy in all this. More of that, though citing Huckabee extensively, is the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

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