explanations

Joe Conason has a very enlightening piece up about Mike Huckabee and his addiction to letting criminals walk free. In the article Conason points out something very interesting, yet missed in this debate:

Huckabee has proudly declared on many occasions that he disdains the separation of church and state, insisting that his strict Baptist piety should serve as the bedrock of public policy. Nowhere in his record as governor was the influence of religious zeal felt more heavily than in the distribution of pardons and commutations, as his own explanations have indicated.

Religion clouded Huckabee’s judgment, which resulted in the release of a record number of prisoners, including Maurice Clemmons. This is the very reason why we should chose leaders based upon their performance, instead of how many times they pray. Would Jesus let someone like Clemmons walk free to constantly repeat the violent crimes he had done all his life? I highly doubt it.

The next time someone says they will use their religious views to lead our nation, we now only have to point to the actions of Huckabee to argue against them.

Just ask old Confederate Yankee, who informs us of the following from the ‘thinkin’ room’:

Dear 52,

It seems the man you entrusted with your vote lied about his relationship with domestic terrorist and attempted mass murderer Bill Ayers.

Many of you either didn't hear about Ayers, or accepted Obama's evolving explanations that Ayers was "just a guy in his neighborhood," or someone that he thought had gone through some sort of terrorist rehabilitation—perhaps at the Yasser Arafat wing of the Betty Ford Clinic.

But now that Ayers has come out and admitted that their relationship is very close—"family friends" is how he put it—how does that make you feel?

~~gt;I ask, becuase as Malcolm once explained, you've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You’ve been bamboozled.

You've been conned in to voting the family friend of a known terrorist into the White House.

How does that make you feel?

Well color me stupid! I’m going to load up the shotgun, hop in the pickup and head on down to the election office and get my vote back! It’s amazing how stoopid a majority of this country really iz. We’ez shudav known we waz in fir a hoodswinkin’. Dam that edumacated negro and his terroist frinds.

Five more soldiers were killed in Iraq today, bringing the October's toll to 96 soldiers lost. The last time we had this many soldiers killed in Iraq in one month was last October, and that number is certain to go higher.

Sidney Blumenthal also has an interesting piece up at Salon regarding Bush and the Iraq Study Group. Blumenthal is predicting that Bush will not follow the recommendations of James Baker:

Bush is engaged in a shadow politics of fending off Baker that he can't admit and that require new disingenuous explanations for rejection even before receiving Baker's report. But will consummate political player Baker permit a dynamic in which he is humiliated and join the ranks of the dismissed and discarded, like "good soldier" Colin Powell? If Baker, taking his cue from Bush's rebuke, simply closes ranks, what would have been his point, except to highlight his failure at an attempted rescue? By undermining Baker, especially beforehand, Bush sends a signal that he is determined to maintain his counterproductive strategies in Iraq and the Middle East. Yet his tightening coil will trigger further attempts among U.S. allies and Arab governments to disentangle themselves.

Sidney could very well be right. When you watch Bush's press conference from yesterday, you can tell this is a man who will not change. He is not open to new plans or tactics and he responds to every bit of criticism, or even question raising, with a very angry demeanor. This is not reporters he is talking to like this, this is the American people he is yelling at.