I Don't Heart Huckabee

Mike Huckabee might once have been the Governor of Arkansas, and he might be a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Presidency, but he is also a nutjob - like at least three of his competitors. And if you thought George Bush was a religious zealot, just wait until you get one of these guys into the White House.

Last week, the Republican hopefuls staged a debate in New Hampshire during which they were asked for their views on evolution. Mike Huckabee: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. A person either believes that God created the process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own. If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it." Ok, so Huckabee isn't a serious candidate.

But John McCain is.

"I admire [Huckabee's] description, because I hold that view," said McCain. (Earlier he did not raise his hand when asked if he thought that evolution was untrue. Sam Brownback, and, naturally, Tom Tancredo, did.) So that's four out of the ten runners who disbelieve a simple scientific fact.

Now this post isn't a debate on creationism. It's patent nonsense, a triumph of pure belief over empiric fact. And if you disagree with me, I have no time to persuade you otherwise. The fact is that the Republicans have a choice: a white, Christian man over 50, or a white, Christian man over 50 who thinks that God created the earth in six days around six thousand years ago. (For all I know they also think the world is flat, and that when you kiss a frog it turns into a Prince.)

They may be a joke - but if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, one of these guys is going to be President. And it could be McCain - the political outcast and rebel who's suddenly become Bush's Iraq lapdog, and now a champion of the worst element of anti-intellectual America.

And we thought Bush's ignorant views on stem cells were obsolete and driven by religious fervor.