The Huck: Genuinely Religious Or Just Another Pandering Liar?

When Mother Jones asked the Huckabee campaign for copies of sermons the candidate gave during his years as a Baptist minister, it got a one-sentence response: The campaign had received multiple requests for the sermons and was "not able to accommodate" them. David Corn and Jonathan Stein suggest that "Huckabee the candidate is shunning Huckabee the pastor."

We're not sure that's it, exactly -- he's a "Christian leader," remember? -- but Huckabee the candidate is clearly selling the religious sizzle to the GOP's evangelical base while trying to avoid some of the tough steak that others might have a hard time swallowing. "People have asked me more about my faith than probably anyone running," Huckabee said Monday on Fox News. "And, you know, it's good, and I'm glad. I'm not angry about it because I've had an opportunity to talk about my faith. And maybe it will influence somebody in a positive way. And if it does, then all the more reason to rejoice in all of that."

And if it doesn't? Well, let's just not talk about that.

Corn and Stein have been able to find a few old Huckabee sermons, and in one of them Huckabee the pastor declares: "It doesn't embarrass me one bit to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people."

As we noted the other day, it does seem to "embarrass" Huckabee the candidate to say that now. Over the past six months, Huckabee has gone from saying that he doesn't believe in evolution, to saying that he doesn't think he evolved from apes, to saying that evolution is "not a yes or no question" and that he thinks "there was a God behind" the creation of man, to saying that while he believes God created man, he doesn't know "how he did it, in the intricate manner." "I think some people get all wrapped up [in] 'OK, was it, did he take the rib out of Adam? Did he make it like' -- I have no reason to believe he didn't. But I don't know."

Is that the same thing as saying that you're not embarrassed to declare that "Adam and Eve were real people"? Huckabee told reporters back in October that if there's a conflict between science and what he believes of God, he'll stick with God because science changes and God doesn't. Maybe that's right. But the question is, has Huckabee changed? Is what he said as a pastor different from what he says as a candidate? Which one represents the "real" Huckabee? If a man says that his faith drives the decisions he makes, aren't voters entitled to ask those questions and expect that they'll be answered?

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