Article VI Blog

Lowell and I have both has severe attacks of “too doggone busy” so welcome to today’s link list:

Church and politics quiz - haven’t had time to look at it, tell us what you think.

About the Dems and faith:

They are pushing.
Pentecostals are in the lead.
Has their push worked? - WSJ
Challenges - the Examiner
Pelosi’s attempt to usurp Papal authority starting to see some MSM light.

“On Faith” is trying to advise the candidates. Is it just me or has this once valuable forum gotten a bit silly?

Southern Baptists getting out the vote with prayer.

No middle ground on Romney?

Finally in Huck-a-land:

Idle speculation. Which in the end was denied by the Huckster himself in an interview on Limbaugh yesterday.

RUSH: Well, he’s got a Pelosi problem on that. You know, she’s been denounced by as many Catholic Church leaders as have chosen to speak out on it and she’s standing by it. You know, these people are sitting ducks I think if the Republican campaign is run the right way. Are you on the vice presidential short list?

HUCKABEE: I don’t even think I’m on the long list. I have not been asked to pack a bag to go to Dayton on Friday so I don’t think there’s any illusion. If he’s looking for a female, the closest I would get is if they would ask me to maybe dress in drag and run that way but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so, no, I don’t think I’m on the list at all.

But the interview was marked by our hearing, once again some of Huckabee’s more vacant denials about making Romney’s religion an issue:

RUSH: Thank you. So are you, sir. Now let’s get right to the chase here. I said something a couple weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, about you and Governor Romney that you strenuously objected to. What was it that I said that was incorrect?

HUCKABEE: Well, that I had made an issue out of his religion and had sort of poisoned him with evangelicals and that’s simply not true. You know, one of the things that I’ve been very adamant about is that I don’t think his religion has one thing to do with whether people should support him. Some of my favorite public servants in America happen to be the same religion he is, the Morman religion. That would be people like Mike Leavitt, Orrin Hatch, Jon Huntsman, the current governor of Utah. Great people. It has nothing to do with it.

RUSH: Yeah, but they’re not running for president nor running against you for the nomination. I guess I track this back to at one point you talking about what Romney believes, that Christ and Lucifer were brothers.

HUCKABEE: It was a question that I actually asked of the New York Times Magazine writer, because he knew a lot more about Mormonism than I did. It appeared as 11 words in about a 10,000-word story, and that got all the play. I personally apologized to Mitt because it did come across wrong and it’s simply not the way I feel and it isn’t, and I don’t think Mitt Romney’s religion has a thing to do with it. I think, you know, a record has to do with it, but not his religion. And frankly, my attitude is, the primary’s over, we need to get behind John McCain, support him, He’s our best chance, right now, our only chance to beat Barack Obama, and Barack Obama will destroy small business, his plans for higher taxes would be abominable, and his absolutely frankly deplorable view about when life begins is nothing short of frightening.

There is nothing new here, save for the fact that he has taken about every opportunity at press he can get to tell this tale after the “anybody but Romney” push of a couple of weeks ago. People of faith like us, creedal or Mormon, are big on apologies - it is after all where redemption is rooted. Politics is a very different story - politicians never apologize; they change the subject, they spin, they “move on,” but apologies are a sign of weakness and a politician never wants to appear weak.

Huckabee now has a giant millstone hanging around his neck and he is drowning. He is obviously trying to get it off and get to the surface, but he is not having much luck. What the followers of this blog, and many others, clearly want is an apology, but he is a politician so that ain’t happening. What’s he to do?

Well, in this humble blogger’s analysis he has only one option, and it weakens him almost as much as an apology. He must repudiate those that did blatantly and remoreslessly make Romney’s faith an issue, particularly those that did so under the guise of his campaign. He will lose an enormous amount of his support when he does, but it is his only hope of ever gaining any mainstream support.

The fact that Romney is on the VP short list and Huck is not has served as a severe chastisement to Huck. (His admission of that fact above is something of an apology) And our open letter of last week, along with others like it that have undoubtedly been written, could have resulted in some behind the scenes communication to send Huck the needed messages. He clearly wants to move to the correct side of this, even if he does retain his personal distaste for Mitt Romney. (The evidence of this later fact remains strong) He just has one more step to take.

Keep coming Huck, shore is in sight.

Lowell adds: There is one element that has been distressingly absent throughout this election cycle: Denunciation. McCain never disavowed Cyndi Mosteller’s comments. Huck, while always putting on the most innocent of airs about his own comments, has never been able to bring himself to say anything at all about, much less denounce or disavow, the ugly comments of his supporters. This is undeniable. I wish Rush Limbaugh had asked Huckabee what he thought about the comments of bigots like Joel Belz, or about the comments on Huck’s own web site (which were not removed) referring to Mitt Romney as “Mormon garbage.” I wonder if comments calling Lieberman a “sneaky Jew” would have been left on Huck’s site? It continues to amaze me that in the United States of America the general response to such repulsive speech has been silence, which I think is born of outright cowardice.
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