If you go back and read through my blog entries you will find some periodic entries where I talk about how questionable Mitt's judgment can be at times.

If Mitt actually means this...that Huckabee would be a good VP...rather than hopefully just saying something nice because he doesnt't want to be seen as being a meanie...well all I can say is that once again highlights a serious lack of judgment on his part. Huckabee would be a lousy Vice-President precisely because he would be a horrible president. The man shouldn't be within a hundred miles of the white house let alone being the second in line.

Not to mention the horrible notion that Huckabee would be essentially the next in line for running after a Mitt presidency would end...(assuming a Mitt presidency of course)

If I wouldn't vote for the man now I wouldn't vote for him then and the thought of essentially handing him the party keys after eight years ... ::shudder::

Mitt, just when I thought I was warming up to you you go and say something stupid like this.  

 Mitt Romney was asked at a town hall meeting about was why he has been making so many negative comments about Mike Huckabee lately and whether he thought the former Arkansas governor would make a good vice president.

“Sure, he’s a wonderful person,” Romney said. “He’d make a great vice president. But I also think that the issues that we’re dealing with today are very important issues and it’s important for people to understand where we stand on issues.”

Story

George Will does such a great job I just don't have anything to add.

“Huckabee’s campaign actually is what Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy is misdescribed as being — a comprehensive apostasy against core Republican beliefs,” Will writes in his latest column.

Giuliani departs from recent GOP positions only on abortion and the recognition of same-sex couples, Will observes.

Huckabee, on the other hand, “broadly repudiates core Republican policies such as free trade, low taxes, the essential legitimacy of America’s corporate entities and the market system allocating wealth and opportunity,” according to Will.

Will points out that the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association, a teachers union that is an important part of the Democratic Party’s base, last week endorsed Huckabee in the Republican primary.

The union “likes, as public employees generally do, his record of tax increases, and it applauds his opposition to school choice,” Will writes, adding that Huckabee “represents wholesale repudiation of what came after the 1970s — Reaganism.”

Story

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.

A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mr Means said.

The treaties signed with the U.S. were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.

Story

Hmmm.  This might prove interesting. Wonder what action we will take.  I have my own thoughts on it..I think things like removal of all state and federal services denial of the use of our roads and airspace..things along those lines. I mean if the treaties are null and void and all that.

Story

In the political world about the only thing I want to see more than the collapse of the Huckabee Hype is the demise of the environmentalist movement. I am constantly amazed at how a political subset can be so demonstrably wrong so often and yet still manage to have credibility.

But evironmental hysteria is particularly annoying because their lunacy when put in practice has such a direct impact on my life..especially on my wallet as they drive energy costs up through their stupidity.

So stories like this just make my day...mind you I don't mean I enjoy stories about loss of life and crop failures I am sorry for those who had to suffer the tragedies assocaited with these weatehr conditions...but in a broader context stories like this lend hope to the possibility of an end to the global wamring hysteria.

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.

Britain's Office of National Statistics says the name of the Muslim prophet is on the verge of becoming the most popular name for newborn boys in the United Kingdom.

While Jack has reigned supreme for the last 13 years, Britain's growing Muslim society has rocketed their prophet's name -- including all spelling variations -- into second place. If the trend holds, Mohammed should pass Jack next year.

Story 

Anyone else find this disturbing.

Anyone read Londonistan?

Story

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is expected to give President George W. Bush a victory in his yearlong battle with anti-war lawmakers over Iraq by approving $70 billion for U.S. military operations there and in Afghanistan.

The Iraq funds, to be voted on by the House Wednesday, have been bundled into an omnibus appropriations measure providing funds for domestic agencies whose budgets are set each year by Congress. Bush has signaled he will sign the massive $555 billion package. It was approved Tuesday in the Senate.

Providing the war funds was a bitter pill for most Democrats, who on Monday sent the Senate a bill limited to $31 billion for U.S. operations in Afghanistan, which have much broader support than the unpopular mission in Iraq.

That effort was doomed in the face of a Bush veto promise and a filibuster by Senate Republicans. The Senate rewrote the measure Tuesday night by a bipartisan tally and dropped the combined Iraq and Afghanistan funding in the House's lap as one of the last votes before most senators left Washington for the year.

Well...better lat ethen never. Nice to see that the republicans managed to stick together and force teh democrats to their knees on this. This will really anger the democrat base who has been frothing at the mouth about the demos failure to kill the Iraq war.

As I suspected (and blogged about) Huckabee's surge was born primarily of enthusiasm for his pro-life position coupled with a fundamental ignorance of his actual record. Mike has managed to get away thus far as calling himself of conservative while beating a populist path through the electorate. He has gotten away with it thus far because no one other than his die hard followers were paying attention. His catapulting into first tier status however changed all that. a record that just just quite frankly does not match his rhetoric (opening obvious questions about his honesty)..coupled with a thin skinned prickliness and a disastrously Carteresque foreign policy vision is rapidly sinking the Huckabee ship.

Its just simply cannot be argued that Mike Huckabee is a conservative. He has only two conservative issues that he can legitimately lay claim to. Pro-Life and Anti Gay Marriage.  The Pro-Life issue is certainly important but it just isn't enough. If Hillary Clinton was Pro-Life would that make her a palatable candidate? Not to true conservatives.  The GOP primary voters are finding out that Huckabee isn't a real conservative...he is basically a pro-life liberal democrat with an "R" next to his name.  That doesn't, and won't, cut it.

Already his lead is dwindling with and in a poll of LIKELY voters has evaporated falling to second place.

The likely voters is key because Huckabee has never really had the organization and money that ROmney has and those things are particularly meaningful in a caucus. I'm guessing Romney will pull Iowa out  at this point.


Romney and a, well I won't call it surging..lets call it upwardly moving Fred Thompson are the apparent beneficiaries of Huckabee's decline and pending collapse. I have to be frank...I can't wait until this populist, hack is out of the race.  Here's to hoping for further collapse of the Huckster in Iowa.

Hugh Hewitt has the transcript of his interview with Michael Rubin.

Michael Rubin is a Resident Scholar at The American Enterprise Institute, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, and one of the country's leading authorities on Iran.

Telling comments

I think he’s woefully nave. First of all, he’s just plain got his facts wrong.

......

Huckabee has his facts wrong, because even though we don’t have formal diplomatic relations, meaning we don’t have exchanges of ambassadors and embassies, there has been constant communication with Iran. Zalmay Khalilzad, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Ryan Crocker, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, were meeting with Iran in 2002 and 2003, to try to get certain deals and agreements on Iraq. Iran took those agreements, basically they were that we wouldn’t interfere in Iran, and they wouldn’t send the Revolutionary Guard into Iraq. And they broke their promises. Before that, of course, the whole, whatever during the Reagan administration, we had what became the Iran-Contra scandal. Now putting aside the issues, the Congressional issues of bypassing Congress and the Nicaraguan Contras, what that was, was an attempt to reach out to Iran. Former National Security Advisor Bud McFarland went over to Tehran to talk, and it wasn’t us who exposed that deal. It was the Iranians when they…for their own domestic, political reasons. We have had constant talks with Iran, and the reason the talks don’t work isn’t because we’re not talking, but it’s rather because every time the Iranians make a promise, they violate it.  


......


I would put him in the Jimmy Carter school of foreign policy.





Yeah that about sums up my thoughts on Huckabee...its my thoughts on Obama's foreign policy vision too..Carteresque to say the least.  If that doesn't give you pause it should.

As poll's show that the Huckbee train has peaked and begun to fall off an ill timed, ill conceived foreign policy statement has provided more fuel to the fire of whetehr or not Huckabee can lead the country. In a move that makes one wonder whether Huckabee has been violating his own smoking ban he manages to come out with a policy position designed to turn anyone who takes the defense of this country seriously (a solid 50% plus of the GOP) against him.  Where Mike will have difficulty enough uniting a party behind a bix tax big spend big government, smoking ban imposing, illegal immigrant scholarship supporting candidate, he now adds to that a position on the left side of the isle with all the "It's America's fault" and the "Let's hug our enemy" crowd. I think the only people Huckabee DOES appeal to are Pro-life anti-gay marriage people. Wonder how long those folks will stick with him once they get a wiff of where he stands on other issues.


Peter Whener over at National Review delivers a stinging criticism of Huckabee. HIs summation I don't think could be put any more clearly.

The role of commander-in-chief is the most important one we look to in a president, particularly when America is at war. Governor Huckabee’s article in Foreign Affairs, while fine (if largely conventional) in some respects, is fundamentally unserious; on national security matters, he is likewise.

This over at the Corner is just a stinging commentary on Huckabee's tterly vacuous foreign policy vision.

Victor Davis Hanson just beats him like a bongo drum.

I don't know much about Mike Huckabee, but found his aw-shucks Foreign Affairs essay strange to say the least (e.g., cf. "The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad." )

I'm not a Romney fan...Not an anti-Romney guy so much as just not supporting him.

But I am starting to think that Patrick Ruffini over at Hugh Hewitt's blog has a good analysis.

I think frankly the key element is this

1. The surging candidates (Huckabee and McCain) are flaky and/or can’t win. This empowers the institutional frontrunners, Rudy and Romney. And Rudy is in trouble.

McCain supportes will probably gravitate towards Rudy when he goes...but Huckabee supporters are far more likely to break in favor of Romney when he collapses.

The best thign Rudy can hpe for is for HUckabee to hold on and win in Iowa which will weaken Romney.

The longer Huckabee can stick around the better for Rudy...the quicker HUckabee collapses the better for Romney.

Make no mistake Huckabee will collapse...and Romney will benefit from it.