Christianist Cat Fight

UPDATED: Gary Bauer fires back at Huckabee:

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As a former candidate myself for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2000, I understand the disappointment Governor Huckabee must feel about his failure to win the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008. It is unfortunate, however, at a time when the GOP needs to close ranks and seek unity, that Governor Huckabee in his new book has aimed his fire at his fellow Republicans.

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Nothing is more fun than watching the Christianist crowd get into a snit and start a full blown cat fight amongst themselves. That's pretty much what former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee does in a new book that is being released. Personally, I am extremely happy that Huckabee did got the GOP nomination and I view him as a religious extremist at least as whacked out as Caribou Barbie Palin. In fact, based on his statements that the U. S. Constitution should reflect Biblical law makes him even more crazy than Bible Spice. Nonetheless, it is great sport to watch him lay into various of the self-anointed Christianist leaders and other GOP figures. Here are some highlights from Time magazine's coverage of Huckabee's new book:

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Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is not the sort of politician who likes to bite his tongue. But that's just what he found himself doing in the eight months . . . On Tuesday, that book will arrive on store shelves, and in terms of payback, it will not disappoint. At once a memoir of his campaign, a treatise on the ills of the Republican Party and a blueprint for his own political future, Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America is filled with sharp words for his fellow Republicans who frustrated his bid for the party's nomination.

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Mitt Romney, Huckabee's principal rival in Iowa, receives the roughest treatment. Huckabee writes that the former Massachusetts governor's record was "anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president."

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Many conservative Christian leaders — who never backed Huckabee, despite their holding similar stances on social issues — are spared neither the rod nor the lash. Huckabee writes of Gary Bauer, the conservative Christian leader and former presidential candidate, as having an "ever-changing reason to deny me his support." . . . . He also accuses Bauer of putting national security before bedrock social issues like the sanctity of life and traditional marriage.

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Huckabee describes other elders of the social-conservative movement, many of whom meet in private as part of an organization called the Arlington Group, as "more enamored with the process, the political strategies, and the party hierarchy than with the simple principles that had originally motivated the Founders."

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He calls out Pat Robertson, the Virginia-based televangelist, and Dr. Bob Jones III, chancellor of Bob Jones University in South Carolina, for endorsing Rudy Giuliani and Romney, respectively. He also has words for the Texas-based Rev. John Hagee, who endorsed the more moderate John McCain in the primaries, as someone who was drawn to the eventual Republican nominee because of the lure of power.