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Many Republican voters are dissatisfied with the GOP presidential candidates this year. We share that frustration. But one of these men is going to be the party's nominee. Of this field, Mike Huckabee is the best choice.

It was a hard decision. In most respects, Mr. Huckabee, who governed Arkansas as a pragmatic, compassionate conservative, is not dramatically different from his main GOP competitors. He is somewhat better on energy and the environment, and though none of the Republicans are as forward-thinking about Iraq as they should be, Mr. Huckabee's emphasis on diplomatic engagement in the Middle East is fresh and welcome.

Mr. Huckabee established a respectable record of fiscal responsibility in Arkansas. Rather than run up deficits, he backed raising taxes to pay for needed infrastructure, health care and education. That's called prudence, and it was once a Republican virtue.

Mr. Huckabee is not an ideal candidate. Once a Bush-style Republican on immigration, his recent hard-right turn smells of opportunism. He too often wings it on foreign policy. But Govs. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also took office without foreign-policy experience. Much depends on the quality of a president's advisers. A chief executive's core foreign-policy convictions matter most, and on those, Mr. Huckabee is a standard conservative.

His religious conservatism, particularly his past rhetoric on women and gays, can be alarming. But religious conservatives aren't easily pigeonholed. A liberal Arkansas professor told The New York Times Magazine that Mr. Huckabee was a good governor. "When he first came to office, people like me were worried about the religious aspect," she said. "And he is very orthodox on gays, guns and God. But he knows there's more than just these issues."

Indeed. Mr. Huckabee has a stout heart for working families and the poor, which as governor got him crossways with some Republicans. Though his strident criticism of free trade is misguided, the economically moderate Mr. Huckabee seems particularly attuned to the anxieties ordinary Americans face in this era of rapid change.

And he is one social conservative who's acutely aware of the call to racial healing. In 1997, when Little Rock Central High commemorated integration's 40th anniversary, Gov. Huckabee delivered a magnificent speech about race, justice and reconciliation that left many in the audience weeping.

It was a profound and profoundly moving address, and it revealed an unusual gift for leadership. Plain-spoken and eloquent, Mr. Huckabee strikes us as decent, principled and empathetic to the views and concerns of others – an antidote to the power-mad partisanship that has led U.S. politics to a dispiriting standstill.

"I'm a conservative," he likes to say. "I'm just not mad about it." Along those lines, what sold us on Mr. Huckabee is a sense that of all the Republicans, he is the change agent the nation most needs. John McCain, whose candidacy is quite appealing despite concern about his age and temperament, was arguably that man once. But his moment has passed.

America needs a clean break from the bitter politics of the recent past. From the right, Mike Huckabee, a progressive conservative with a pastor's heart, can deliver.

I have a test model that I'm going to put on eBay:

Retroencabulator by Rockwell Automation Systems

I'm a Huckabee supporter, but I think the best zinger of the evening was Thompson's. I haven't seen any mention of it in the media, so I'm including it here.

After Rudy and Mitt got through with their immigration slap-fest, other candidates were allowed to weigh in. A little ways into his response, Thompson said:

As far as Mayor Giuliani is concerned, I am a little surprised the mayor says, you know, everybody's responsible for everybody that they hire, but we'll have to address that a little bit further later. I think we've all had people probably that we have hired that in retrospect probably is a bad decision.

Obviously a slightly-too-subtle reference to Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's ethically-challenged police commissioner and ill-fated suggestion for Secretary of Homeland Security, this one went over the heads of most people in the audience.

Republican Debate Transcript, CNN/YouTube - Council on Foreign Relations

BethAnn says vote for Mike Huckabee!

Make sure you watch the video.

There is a sudden storm of Huckabee-bashing, and I confess I don't understand it. Dick Morris has a good rebuttal today — Huckabee Is a Fiscal Conservative — and I have my own observations about the rest of the Republican frontrunners:

• Giuliani is pro-abortion, even partial birth abortion; anti-second amendment, soft on gay marriage, and pro-illegal immigration, but it's okay because he'll appoint "strict constructionist" judges to the Supreme Court.
• Romney has flip-flopped on gay rights, gun control, abortion, immigration and taxes. How do we know he's ready to stand still?
• Thompson flip-flop-flipped on the FairTax (he's in favor of it, right now), and by many accounts is lazy (like the story of his vacation in Paris in the middle of defending a drug dealer, giving the drug dealer grounds for appeal). He sounds folksy, though.
• McCain - Campaign Finance Reform, aka Incumbent Protection Act. Am I seriously supposed to stop blogging about politics the last few weeks before the election?

Of course, I'll support and vote for any of them rather than Hillary, Hussein or Haircut, but I'd rather get a principled, consistent conservative than Not-a-Democrat.

John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets", and ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the eggs (for you city folks).

The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.

Each bell had a different tone, so John could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer's favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! John went to investigate.

The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

But to Farmer John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He would sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result…The judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a Democrat in the making: Who else but a Democrat could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Later, the farmer changed Butch's name to James Earl Carter, or just Al Gore for short.

Watch it yourself — if you dare.

I was looking for the perfect Veteran's Day post, and my friend James sent this:

What Is A Veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's alloy forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the bar room loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravating slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier, and a savior, and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, the greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say, "Thank You". That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU."

– Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC

Maybe he's auditioning for the role of the plain-spoken but lethargic vice-president.

Even Fred Thompson doubts he'll be president

I'm Serious.

Maureen Dowd attempted an obvious rip-off of FrankJ's "In My World" series, and it's completely unfunny, except for this line, ostensibly from Dick Cheney:

We have done virtually everything we can with respect to carrots, if you will. It’s time for squash. Not to mention mushrooms, clouds of them.

David Brooks does a little better.

Charles Krauthammer thinks it's unlikely Hillary will win, but if she does, he recommends exile for Bill.

Townhall.com - Two For the Price of One

Pastor Rick Scarborough, founder and president of Vision America Action, supports Mike Huckabee for president, explains why all evangelicals should do likewise.

WorldNetDaily: Why I'm supporting Mike Huckabee for president

Is your opinion of Mike Huckabee's fiscal record shaped by reports from the Club for Growth? Maybe it's time for a little perspective:

If the Club for Growth had been around in 1980, Reagan might not have become President. The influential fiscal conservative group would surely have done everything in their power to prevent the Gipper from gaining the nomination. They would have attempted to derail Reagan's campaign just as they are now doing to Gov. Huckabee.

For several months the Club for Growth has been attacking Huckabee's bona fides as a fiscal conservative. In the process, they've slandered the Governor's record, deceived numerous trusting conservatives, and cast doubts on the organization's honesty and trustworthiness.

Read  Fiscally Flawed? — A Rebuttal to the Club for Growth for the rest of the story.

G.I. Joe's face came from a true American hero, Sgt. Mitchell Paige. Paige won the Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal, 65 years ago this week.

When Hasbro asked to use his likeness, his only condition was that G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine. Hollywood wants to make a live-action movie based on G.I. Joe, but they don't think it will sell well overseas, so they're going to call him "Action Man."

Making him a metrosexual isn't enough; apparently red-blooded American fighting men frighten overseas moviegoers, too…

"G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer."

Well, thank goodness the villain — no need to offend anyone by making our villains Arabs, Muslims, or foreign dictators of any stripe these days, though apparently Presbyterians who talk like Scottie on "Star Trek" are still OK — is a double-crossing arms dealer. Otherwise one might be tempted to conclude the geniuses at Paramount believe arms dealing itself is evil.

Read the whole story, by Vin Suprynowicz, at the Las Vegas Review Journal.

$1.00 for Mike Huckabee goes further than $7 for Romney.

Read  the last couple of paragraphs at Mullings: Finding a Needle in a Straw Poll and find out why.

I like John Fund's political analysis, but apparently he doesn't like Mike Huckabee. Lucas Roebuck does a good job of correcting the errors in Fund's Another Man from Hope.

Read The Roebuck Report: John Fund's assassination of Huckabee misleading.

Try These Different ways to Become Invisible

My wife and I have been discussing Mike Huckabee's run for President for several days. He was her pastor when she was a teenager, and has always liked him and supported him. She isn't a political junkie like me, so most of her endorsement consists of "I think God truly called him into politics back in the 90s, and is helping him now. He's a good man, and I think he's going to win."

My endorsement is much more considered, and I was going to put it into essay form when I read this:

When it comes to politics, we three are pragmatic idealists. We are dedicated to the pursuit of noble principles and goals while never forgetting that politics is the "art of the possible." Because we are idealists we are choosing to endorse a candidate who most aligns with our principles and values and is most worthy of our sacred trust. Because we are pragmatists we are choosing to endorse the one candidate who we believe is most capable of defeating Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Because we are pragmatic idealists we are endorsing Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The article is An Endorsement of Mike Huckabee - pretty much my thoughts, and they've saved me a couple of hours of writing and re-writing. (Thanks, guys!)

Also, I agree with my wife's opinion.

WuzzaDem rocks! Guess their retirement announcement was "nuanced."

A recent Ovaltine commercial has two moms making Ovaltine for the neighborhood kids.

The ladies are attractive — until the very end when they actually offer the rich, chocolate drink to the kids. Their wide-eyed enthusiasm looks borderline psychotic. Makes me want to stick to Nestle's Quick.

Lolterizts from reader DamnCat on IMAO.

N.O.W. - National Organization for Women - just in case you don't know who they are, and why this is irony.

Did I miss anything?

For some reason, I've never been very good at chess. I'm going to try to do a little studying, and see if I can improve.

ChessWorld.net is a great place to play - click on the link and see if you can beat me, too.

Notio bonum, visa olum. — "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth… In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July!

–Ronald Reagan 

Trueness mixed with teh funny.

IMAO: We've All Been Elisabeth Hasselbeck

BethAnn caught her first fish Saturday afternoon!

I took this pic with my cell-phone camera, then unhooked the fish. She carried it around for a couple of minutes and showed it to everyone around before throwing it back in.

She was using a cheap Wal-Mart lure (because glowing mutant frogs don't have to be expensive) and her spiffy purple and pink Shakespeare rod & reel.

BethAnn was extremely proud and excited (me, too!), and told everyone, "Now I'm a fishergirl!"

Great story — go read it.

The FBI'S Legendary Sharpshooter - Jelly Bryce