An open letter to Iowa Republicans: WTF?!

I understand that the choices on the Republican side were not great. Actually, they were downright craptacular. But really, Mike Huckabee? Can we just recap some of his flaws:

• Blatantly crossed a picket line this week to appear on the Tonight Show, pretending he didn't know the strike was on, even though the Machinists union -- which has endorsed Huckabee -- implored him not to appear on the show.
• Was unaware that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had lifted martial law in that country -- two weeks ago, while making this statement about Benazir Bhutto's assassination: the United States should be "trying to ascertain who’s behind it, and what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continued in Pakistan."
• Stated incorrectly that Pakistan shares its eastern border with Afghanistan (Afghanistan is to the west). Not important, except that it shows his lack of knowledge of that region if he doesn't know that Pakistan is west of India.
• Here on the homefront, Huck's not done much better. Trying to turn the Pakistan election crisis into some good 'ol homegrown terror, he said, "“We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.” He then followed that up with: "In light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday it's interesting that there were more Pakistanis who illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border -- 660 last year." Trouble is, that's not true.
• Huckabee's record in Arkansas is horrible. In his 8 years as governor, he commuted the sentences of over 700 convicted criminals -- more than his three predecessors combined. Included among those he released was Wayne Dumond, who after he was released went on to rape and murder two more women.

Good lord, do I need to go on? Do I need to remind you that his son (who was arrested last spring for trying to bring a gun onto an airplane) was fired from his job as a camp counselor after it was found that he had hanged a dog by its neck, slitting its throat and stoning it to death.

Yes, I know that's the son, not the father, but the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, as we used say in the teaching world. I mean, how else to explain what elder Huckabee said about the AIDS epidemic in 1992:

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague."

I'm sure young Ryan White, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion would have appreciated being isolated. But White died in 1990. Huckabee's claim is that we didn't know much about AIDS in 1992. In 1992! Yes, we did, Mike. Those of us who cared. The first AIDS cases were discovered as early as 1981, and but you must have followed the lead of Ronald Reagan, who refused to utter the term "AIDS" and allowed thousands to die before the federal government finally got involved in researching the disease.

Hell yeah I'm mad. A Mike Huckabee administration? Are you kidding me? Canada, here I come.

UPDATED: Now from FactCheck.org we find that the the negative attack ad that Huckabee held a press conference to announce he would not run, actually did run.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised eyebrows Dec. 31 when he told reporters at a news conference that he had decided not to run an attack ad calling rival Mitt Romney "dishonest," then ran it in front of reporters and TV cameras anyway. Now it turns out that the ad actually appeared on at least three Iowa TV stations that same day.

Update, Jan. 4: According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, the ad aired three times on the day Huckabee made his announcement, and it aired seven times in the following two days. As of Jan. 2, the most recent date for which CMAG has tallied information on the ad, Huckabee's attack ad had run four times on KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, and had appeared on Davenport stations WQAD-TV, three times; KLJB-TV, twice; and WHBF-TV, once.