“Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ‘Don’t Mormons,’ he asked in an innocent voice, ‘believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'” Huckabee asked that question in an interview with Zev Chafetz, and Chafetz reported it in “The Huckabee Factor”, which will appear in the next issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Huckabee aides say that the governor’s question was taken out of context, though they didn’t provide the “real” context, apparently having failed to tape the interview themselves. In the debate today Huckabee talked about how he needed to watch more carefully what he says, and after the debate he went to Romney and apologized. Interestingly, on Fox News Sunday, Huckabee had the follow exchange with Chris Wallace:
Raising that bit about Jesus and the devil being brothers – which the LDS does not teach, a church spokesman says – is not the sort of thing you do if you think “it’s inappropriate” for voters to consider Mormonism in judging Romney; if you think Mormonism shouldn’t “be a factor” in how voters assess Romney; if indeed you yourself “wouldn’t vote for or against somebody because they were Mormon.” Huckabee’s exchange with Wallace came a week or so after he was interviewed by Chafetz (though the story will be published in this Sunday’s Times). Huckabee probably wishes he’d never asked that question of Chafetz, whatever the context. Huckabee inspires, if not the quote of the day, the Bible verse of the week: “A man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue.” –Proverbs 11:12
