Echoes of 1996?

Dean Barnett thinks Mike Huckabee is working from the Pat Buchanan playbook. We know how that worked out for Pat, who perhaps should have been reined in a bit by his savvy sister and sometme strategist, Bay Buchanan.

Ann Coulter doesn't care what playbook Huckabee is using; she just flat doesn't trust him. She got off a nice flourish in an otherwise execrable column this week: "Huckabee wants to get kids involved in music at an early age because he believes it leads to a more balanced and developed brain. You know, as we saw with the Jackson family. Maybe someone should tell him the Osmonds are voting for Romney."

Huckabee's actually right about music, but more sanguine than he should be, and his earnestness leaves him open to salvos like that from professionals, though something tells me even a self-proclaimed Dead Head like Ann would enjoy such unlikely but stirring musical collaborations as the one between Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.

The Republican side of the ledger is especially interesting this week, with at least one Ron Paul supporter calling Paul an heir of the Reagan legacy. Like Jack M. over at Ace of Spades, I'd call that an instance of overreaching.

In other political commentary, the New York Times takes a surprisingly balanced look at Hillary Clinton's claim to foreign policy experience via osmosis. One comes away with doubts.

Even the claims for which there is some shred of supporting evidence ring hollow. Mrs. Clinton's support for women's rights does double-duty on her résumé as a foreign policy item and a human rights item, thanks to a 1995 speech that she made in Beijing for a UN conference. The Times notes that Clinton has leaned hard on that episode, but says nothing about how her "pro-choice" views have done and continue to do disproportionate harm to women.

If, as Barnett notes, Huckabee has "doubled down on his pastor side," it may also be correct to say that Mrs. Clinton has doubled down on her poser side.

And what, you may well wonder, is the point of bringing up a 12-year-old speech made overseas?

The Beijing conference made waves at the time, with various activist groups berating the Vatican for its refusal to toe the United Nations line. The late Pope John Paul II knew instinctively what Hillary Clinton has never figured out-- that the fundamental problem with abortion is that, like the rest of any aggresively secularist worldview, it treats people like debits rather than like credits. Christianity and Judaism think differently.

But enough about politics. Back to Christ, via Chesterton, on this second day of Christmas.

(Revised after the original post in the interest of increased clarity-- heads up, you Weasel Watchers)