Updated following the last post:

The march of talking points masquerading as discussion or fact continues. On ABC's This Week, with George Stephanopoulos interviewing former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, George tries to pin his quarry by coming at him with talking-point type questions from a rightwing perspective: "illegal immigrants"; taxes; leniency, purportedly, for drug dealers. Huckabee, btw, handles all the questions well. He's much better at answering questions than any other Republican candidate except Ron Paul - who seldom needs fancy footwork, since he is straightforward and consistent. Huckabee is also much better at answering questions than most of the Dems.

As I wrote back last summer and again in September, this is the candidate to beat, or rather to lose to, if the GOP is smart enough to nominate him. Not likely they will be, though. They always go for a corporate mouthpiece, and neither Huckabee nor Paul -- alone among the Republican presidential candidates -- seems to fill the bill.

In no way are my comments to be taken as an endorsement of a hiked-up regressive sales tax. But Huckabee is a much stronger speaker on most topics than the pundits ever gave him credit for, and most of his statements come across as either true or sensible accommodations to a difficult situation.

As usual, the MSM is focusing on the nominal 'front runners' -- that would be Romney and Giuliani. For my money, the real debate in the CNN-YouTube presentation last Wednesday (Nov. 28) -- and the only real debate -- was between John McCain and Ron Paul. All the Republicans except Paul are going along with Bush on the war; McCain is the only candidate with the credibility to maintain an untenable position in support of this terrible war. Ron Paul is in a much stronger position -- the only Republican taking the genuinely conservative position on invading and occupying other countries.