But he seemed like such a nice man...

Exposing the dark side of Mike Huckabee. And there really is a dark side. Remember when Texas was warning us that a certain governor wasn't all that good a candidate? Remember how we promised ourselves we would look at the state where any politician came from and look at his/her RECORD? Remember how we vowed we'd never ever again unquestioningly take the mainstream media's word for it? Remember?:

Max Brantley for Salon:

In 10 years as governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee left a rich and complicated history. It is not without points to praise. But there's so much more, a record that the national media -- so ready, since 1992, to plumb the tiniest cranny of Bill Clinton's past -- seems uneager to discover. It's a measure of the loving kindness with which he's been treated so far by the coastal punditry that Huckabee has not yet had one of his famous self-pitying public meltdowns about the unfairness of the media.

But then, you don't have to believe me about any of this. After all, I live in Little Rock and, as Huckabee has often said, I'm just the editor of a trashy, throwaway liberal tabloid. Why not look instead to a conservative voice from the national media? At the American Spectator, once home to the anti-Clinton Arkansas Project, senior editor Quin Hillyer, a former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial writer, wrote recently, "National media folks like David Brooks [of the New York Times], dealing in surface appearances only, rave about what a nice guy Huckabee is, and a moral exemplar to boot. If they only did a little homework, they would discover a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics."

At last, something the national media and the Arkansas media can agree on.

Thin-skinned, vindictive, and greedy? Didn't we just go through two terms with a guy like this?

Update: Steve Benen of Talking Points Memo has an excellent overview of Huckabee:

It's probably fair to say that Mike Huckabee has had a strange week. On the one hand, he's been surging in the polls, picking up religious right endorsements, and is now considered the frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses. On the other hand, he's been caught lying about the Wayne Dumond scandal, he's proven that has no idea what the National Intelligence Estimate is, he's completed a dramatic flip-flop on immigration policy, and he's presented himself as literally God's own anointed presidential candidate.

Update 12/10:
Jesus' General has an excellent take on Huckabee and offers this stunning poster: