Some Video Picks

It comes as no surprise, I'm sure, that I'm hardly a Mike Huckabee booster. I'm intrigued about how the Republicans will deal with him if he keeps rising, but I've got a feeling that we'll never actually get to that point (although, as we've seen, the Republicans can be crafty in their attacks, so even though we might indeed witness such a reaction, it's possible that we wouldn't quite recognize it as such). But even though I'm nowhere near the Huckabee camp, it still seemed like The New York Times was serving up a cheap shot at him this morning. In a profile examining his new status as frontrunner, Mark Leibovich described Huckabee's "round brown eyes and smiley bearing [that] make him slightly resemble the actor Jim Nabors." That's right, out of nowhere, the Times said Huckabee reminds them of Gomer Pyle. That just seems unnecessary.

You may have heard some hubbub about Huckabee's new Christmas ad that says nothing about politics and everything about Christmas being Jesus' birthday. He's got an ersatz cross in the background (which just annoys me--if you're going to blur the lines between church and state, at least have the decency to be up front about it; don't put a cross in your commercial and then claim it's really just a book case, so what's everybody making such a big deal for?), and he insists that all he really wants to do is wish everybody a merry Christmas. Of course, the ad is paid for by his presidential campaign, making it the very definition of a political ad, but never mind that. I was looking at the ad after I read the Times piece, and darn it if it wasn't right. There is something in his manner that evokes Jim Nabors. Can it really be a cheap shot if it's true?

You can see the ad in a number of places, but one of them is at Time's Swampland. In the same link, you can see Rudy Giuliani's Christmas ads, one for broadcast and one for the Web. They're very odd pieces of work. In the broadcast one, Rudy's sitting there in a red sweater next to Santa Claus, listing his Christmas hopes. They're pretty normal "peace on Earth" kinds of things, but one item on his list is harmony among the Republican presidential candidates. Up to now, Santa's been nothing more than window dressing, but at this point he jumps in. For reasons known only to himself (and the Giuliani campaign, I guess), Santa's against harmony among the candidates. No, he actively wants discord. Presidential primary fights! That's apparently what says Christmas to Santa Claus.

Since we're already on the subject of video clips, Stevie T recommends this one. Don't be fooled. It looks like a straight-up version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," but if you were following the discussion around this post, you'll find something worth your while.