The only serious question about Mike Huckabee is whether he’s Clinton redux or Bush II redux. Either way, his habitual dishonesty is not open for debate:
Jennifer, you make a good point in that Huckabee is very convincing at expressing regret. That’s why he is doing so well in the polls: Because he is so good at sounding good, no matter whether what he says holds water or not. You miss the most relevant point, though, Jennifer: What he says is an outright lie. Here is the big whopper in what you quote from him: “Nobody, not me, not Jim Guy Tucker, not Bill Clinton, not that parole board, could ever imagine what might have transpired.. ” This is, to put it kindly, a crock of manure. The whole point of the Murray Waas story out today is that Huckabee was warned repeatedly and convincingly EXACTLY what was likely to transpire if DuMond were to be released, and he ignored all those warnings. Meanwhile, the evidence presented is absolutely overwhelming that he strongly intervened with the parole board to secure DuMond’s release — and he seems to have lied about that too. Just like he lied about whether or not he was “ordered” by his state’s courts to impose a particular tax hike, and just like several other now-documented misrepresentations he has made about the circumstances of his tax hikes.
The ready willingness of American evangelicals to fall for demonstrably dishonest politicians is one of the very few areas in which I feel some measure of agreement with atheist critics of American evangelical Christianity. But a blithe statement of “he touched my heart” is no more inherently truthful than “it’s for the children”.