I guess it was inevitable--Mike Huckabee has advanced on a winning personality and unassailable Evangelical bona fides. Until now he hasn't been tested the way a leading candidate would be.

He's not ready.

What kind of frontrunner slings mud?

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

The article, to be published in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, says Huckabee asked the question after saying he believes Mormonism is a religion but doesn't know much about it. His rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, is a member of the Mormon church, which is known officially as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The authoritative Encyclopedia of Mormonism, published in 1992, does not refer to Jesus and Satan as brothers. It speaks of Jesus as the son of God and of Satan as a fallen angel, which is a Biblical account.

A spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Huckabee's question is usually raised by those who wish to smear the Mormon faith rather than clarify doctrine.

"We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the father of all," said the spokeswoman, Kim Farah. "That means that all beings were created by God and are his spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for."

...a moron front-runner, that's who.

Notably, the obvious distortion masks the lesser known, but much more serious one--Huckabee doesn't know anything about the Mormons?

Bullshit.

In 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) descended on Salt Lake City for their annual meeting. If you think that's an unusual choice, you'd be right. The number of SBC members in Utah is negligible, but the message would be unmistakable. In spite of nearly identical political and social mores, the SBC disdained association with Latter-day Saints in Jerry Falwell's abortive Moral Majority. As is custom for such annual meetings, there is a massive proselyting effort in the environs of the city, but for Salt Lake, the SBC produced a 50 minute video entitled, "the Mormon Puzzle" and distributed to ALL 40,000 Baptist congregations sending delegates to the meeting. In addition, the SBC also printed over 12,000 copies of "Mormonism Unmasked" The materials characterized Mormonism as a dangerous cult (a dehumanizing Evangelical perjorative) and a major threat to SBC interests. However it mainly instructed "messengers" on how to attack the beliefs of their Mormon targets. There was little doubt that this provocative action by the SBC was designed to be a showdown--the mainstream press sent its largest contingent ever to the Salt Lake City annual meeting, hoping for open warfare. In the end, Mormon church leadership simply encouraged its members to be courteous to their Baptist brethren and the story evaporated.

It is simply not credible that Mike Huckabee doesn't know anything about the religion (you can almost hear him say 'cult' under his breath). The SBC has spent decades and millions of dollars fostering hatred of Mormons.

Huckabee may well have jumped the shark with this ill-advised remark.

UPDATE: Huckabee apologizes personally to Romney after Iowa debate. Smart move, perhaps even genuine, but it still doesn't change the fact that Huckabee is being disingenuous about what he knows about the Mormon faith and how he regards them. Its telling that Huckabee has refused to release his sermons...

UPDATE II: Dave Calder commented that Mike Huckabee was a keynote speaker at the 1998 Salt Lake City annual meeting of the SBC. I've found corroboration for that claim.

Little Rock Newspapers 1998, July 2, 1998, Linda S. Caillouet

On Sunday evening, Gov. Mike Huckabee was the keynote speaker at the Pastors' Conference preceding the convention. His wife, Janet, accompanied him to Salt Lake City.

The Anchoress