Huckabee presents an interesting paradox. He is where he is because he's an authentic Christian, but he keeps getting caught in very unChristian-like lies about his motivations and actions.

I was shocked when his interview with the New Yorker magazine included the throw-away line, "I don't know much about Mormonism", when not only is it a significant element in the education of any Southern Baptist minister, Huckabee while governor of Arkansas, was a keynote speaker at an anti-Mormon themed annual meeting of the SBC provocatively held in Salt Lake City in 1998.

When several media people picked up on this, his campaign supported his claim of ignorance by claiming that he had never completed his theology degree. That statement proved problematic because he had publicly stated that he was particularly well-situated to deal with Islamofascism because he was the only candidate with a theology degree.

Clarification ensued, but it hasn't changed the fact that Huckabee had the intent to deceive, claiming expertise and ignorance when it was political convenient to do so.

The Huckabee campaign then spends big bucks to wish everyone a Merry Christmas

"If we are so politically correct in this country that a person can't say enough of the nonsense with the political attack ads could we pause for a few days and say Merry Christmas to each other then we're really, really in trouble as a country," Huckabee said.

Notably, he was only wishing the folks in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina a Merry Christmas--nothing political about that. The floating cross in the background was of course code to Evangelical voters--Jesus want you to vote for me...not the first time Jesus has been used to promote bigotry.

I'm just wondering if this actually works or not. I'm used to hypocrisy from the left, but my impression of Evangelicals is that they take their principles seriously. A lying Christian is a pretty dramatic contradiction