oh, for crying out loud.

Mr. Brownback's campaign and Mr. Huckabee's are having a bit of a difference of opinion

A little e-mail battle brewing over the past few days between Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is escalating into an endless Punch-and-Judy show. And like spellbound children, we’re captivated by every volley.

It all started with an e-mail written by the Rev. Tim Rude, a Huckabee supporter, asking two Brownback supporters to consider switching sides. The longish e-mail contained some typical pitches, but there was also this:

Huckabee is an evangelical. He has not learned how to speak to evangelicals; i.e. Bush 41 & 43. He is one of us. I know Senator Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002. Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor’s. I don’t if this fact is widely known among evangelicals who are supporting Brownback. [sic.]

Evidently, Mr. Rude’s appeal didn’t work for at least one of the recipients, because a couple of blogs got wind. Mr. Huckabee’s campaign issued a statement Wednesday saying that he was glad Mr. Rude apologized but that the e-mails “were not authorized by, disseminated by, approved by, or condoned by the campaign.”(*)

He continued:

I consider Sam Brownback a Christian brother and know that he feels likewise toward me. Like Senator Brownback, several key members of my staff are Roman Catholic. As believers, we don’t have time to fight each other.

Well, um, apparently they do have time to fight each other. That e-mail hit our inbox yesterday. A few hours later came a missive from the Brownback campaign calling Mr. Rude’s apology “tepid” and the Huckabee response “evasive.”

Chip Saltsman, Mr. Huckabee’s campaign manager, must’ve spent all night stewing over that one, because this morning, he sent out one of the angrier statements we’ve seen:

It’s time for Sam Brownback to stop whining and start showing some of the Christian character he seems to always find lacking in others. He has attacked Governor Huckabee for something that a Huckabee supporter said in an email sent to two individuals. The person who originated the email has apologized and is not a member of the Huckabee staff. For Brownback to claim that the Governor “owes him an apology” is nonsense and indicates that if Brownback is going to fall to pieces every time a supporter of the Governor says something he doesn’t like, he clearly isn’t tough enough to be President. The Governor strongly disavowed the statement by the supporter, but that wasn’t enough for Brownback. He continued to cry about it. The irony is that unlike Senator Brownback, I have been a Catholic my entire life, as have several of the senior staff members in the Huckabee campaign. Governor Huckabee enjoys strong support from Catholics and for good cause. If Senator Brownback wants to start apologizing for inappropriate things said, perhaps he could pull the “beam out of his own eye before taking the speck out of someone else’s” by apologizing for the website ‘Baptists for Brownback’ that states that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Fred Thompson and others are ‘Hell bound...

Which is where it starts, all evidence to the contrary, to get very, very strange.

Because Baptists for Brownback is run by a Mrs. Taffy Davenport Gaines-Crockett.

Mrs. Gaines-Crockett is affililated with Landover Baptist Church.

So that puts us at Huckabee, one bigot supporter and one bigot campaign manager with no access to Google, and Brownback, one bigger payoff for cynicism than anyone in his campaign ever dared to dream.

People whose faith is not a campaign tactic, 0.

That said, Mr. Saltsman should be gone yesterday.


*person not really in a position to cast too many stones Deal Hudson got the non-apology apology

Rev. Rude, who left the Catholic Church 30 years ago, plans on issuing an apology. He says he did not intend the e-mail to be made public. 

"All I was trying to say" he explained, "is that Protestants should vote for Protestants."