This, from the 12/16/07 online edition of the New York Times:

With just weeks left before the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, Mr. Huckabee has climbed to near the top of a crowded Republican field. But he may have given his rivals an opening when he decried what he called “the Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality.” Writing last week in the journal Foreign Affairs, he said, “American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out.”

Perhaps sensing that Mr. Huckabee might have offended the core conservatives vital to securing a Republican nomination, Mr. Romney pounced.

“That’s an insult to the president, and Mike Huckabee should apologize to the president,” Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said Sunday on the NBC News program “Meet the Press.”

In an earlier appearance in Humboldt, Iowa, Mr. Romney was even more scathing. “I can’t believe he’d say that,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s running for the wrong party.”

Romney wants to make it clear to GOP primary voters that he is Bush's biggest sycophant. But, Huckabee was quick to minimize any independence from Bush:

Mr. Huckabee, in a CNN appearance apparently added belatedly to his schedule, sought to explain. “I didn’t say the president was arrogant,” he said. “I said that the policies have been arrogant.”

Genuflecting to an incompetent, unelected tyrant is still the order of the day in the GOP.

How pathetic!

When religious groups except tax-exempt status, they make a promise to the taxpayers in return, not to use tax-free assets to support political candidates. So much for Christian fundamentalists keeping promises. Excerpted from Americans United for Separation of Church and State Press Release 12/4/07:

Americans United Asks IRS To Investigate Falwell's Liberty University For Endorsement Of Mike Huckabee

Liberty Chancellor Used School Resources To Promote Presidential Candidate, Church-State Watchdog Group Says

Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. violated federal tax law by using school resources to endorse Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Americans United for Separation of Church and State told the Internal Revenue Service today.

In a complaint filed with the federal tax agency, Americans United noted that Falwell hosted the candidate at Liberty University and then sent an email message on Liberty University letterhead endorsing Huckabee.

In a “Liberty News Alert” dated Dec. 1, 2007, Falwell wrote, “Recently, Governor Mike Huckabee called to brief me on the progress of his campaign for the presidency. I invited the Governor to speak to the Liberty University students in Convocation on November 28. He graciously accepted. I was so impressed with the Governor’s sincerity and his positions on the issues that are important to conservative Christians that I personally endorsed Governor Huckabee before he left Lynchburg.”

Falwell goes on to say, “My father strongly supported Governor Huckabee when no one thought that he had any chance to succeed in the presidential race. I believe with all my heart that, if my father had witnessed Governor Huckabee’s surge in the polls and his ascension to first place in the Iowa polls, he would have endorsed Governor Huckabee without hesitation.”

The alert was accompanied by an article from a university-run online publication implying that Huckabee is God’s candidate.

Americans United sent a letter to IRS officials today, asking them to investigate the matter. The letter notes that on Nov. 19, the IRS issued a press statement reminding charities and churches about the ban on politicking and asks the tax agency to back that up with enforcement in this case.

“Falwell surely knows that these types of political endorsements are illegal,” remarked the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Tax-exempt religious institutions may not be used to support or oppose candidates for public office.”

Falwell seems to be following in the footsteps of his late father Jerry Falwell Sr. In 1993, Falwell Sr.'s Old Time Gospel Hour had its tax exemption retroactively revoked for the years 1986 and 1987 and the ministry was required to pay $50,000 because of involvement in partisan politics.

Pastors and heads of 501(c)(3) non-profit groups are free to endorse candidates as private individuals, but the Internal Revenue Code does not allow them to use institutional resources, such as official publications, Web sites and other forms of communication, to back or oppose candidates.