This positive review by ABC is typical of the outpouring of reviews I've been seeing about Mike Huckabee's first day as a radio talk show host to compete with Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's troubles, of course, couldn't have been more propitious for The Huckster.

One quibble. ABC refers to Huckabee's line about being a talk show where you'll get "both sides?" Political guests yesterday were Ed Rollins, Mitt Romney and the reptilian Dick Morris. Both sides of what?

• Cumulus Media
• RUSH SEASON: Mike Huckabee

Maybe you can hear it in tax fugitive haven Florida, where the former Arkansas governor now resides.

UPDATE: Huckabe opens by attacking Obama.

CORRECTION: A Huckabee spokesman says the program indeed made it to some Arkansas stations, specifically KFAY, KXAR, KBHS and KELD. Those within reach of certain stations in Memphis, Southeast Missouri, Shreveport and Mississippi also had a crack at it.

• TARGET AUDIENCE: Mike Huckabee, with Meryl Streep, could reach women that Limbaugh doesn't attract.

Limbaugh’s calculation that his core advertisers must return always rested on the assumption that there was nowhere else to go. Suddenly, in the worst month of Limbaugh’s career, somewhere else has appeared: a lower-priced alternative, with big audience reach and a host an advertiser can trust never, ever to abuse a student as a “slut” and “prostitute.”

The new Huckabee show’s slogan is “more conversation; less confrontation.” “I don’t want it to be a show that every day, every hour, pushes everyone’s buttons to raise their blood pressure,” Huckabee says. “I figure the cost of high blood pressure is enough already.”

Frum, as many commentators do, praises Huckabee's "genial temperament." Longer exposure to Huckabee yields the understanding that he can be a slashing politician with a knack for turning a quick and mean phrase against opponents. Plus, he has a demonstrated yen for destroying hard drives. But he's generally resisted that mean streak in using the national media platform he's built since leaving office and the dividends are evident. Frum thinks some of Huckabee's success will depend on reaching middle-aged women. Limbaugh dominates with angry old white men. Huckabee has calibrated his Fox show with that in mind (Meryl Streep was a recent guest.) Women trend a bit more liberal on social issues, however. Huckabee's anti-abortion, anti-gay positions are unyielding. Also guns, stem cell research and more. He does have a soft spot on immigrants.

MORE: From Huckabee's network.

Gov. Mike Beebe's office sent out a round of pardons today and they fit the pattern of his tenure — only six granted among 59 applications and then only for relatively minor offenses. The six today were all related to minor drug convictions, the most recent nine years ago.

Has anybody been more grudging in use of the governor's clemency powers? Mike Huckabee's judgment failed him on more than one occasion in those he chose to favor with commutation, pardon or parole support, but I don't think that was always on account of helping the politically, religiously or otherwise well-connected. He demonstrated a belief in redemption that doesn't seem evident in the current administration's overly cautious approach.

The guns of March. Mike Huckabee joins the Republican cadre seemingly anxious to flex some military muscle against Iran. Writing for USA Today, the Huckster said:

Military action should be a last resort, but diplomacy can work only if the threat of military action is genuine and the Iranian mullahs believe it. For that reason, President Obama can allow no daylight between the U.S. and Israel. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House today, President Obama should publicly make it clear that Israel has every right to protect itself against the Iranian threat. He should further boldly state that the U.S. will take military action on its own if necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The window of opportunity for diplomacy is closing. Seventy years after the Holocaust, the U.S. cannot turn a blind eye to Iran, which is the focus of evil in the modern world. We must act soon or face the withering verdict of history.

If Iraq took nine years to "pacify" — plus 4,500 American lives, 100,000 Iraqi lives and about $800 billion — Iran shouldn't take more than twice that.

Mike Huckabee, who doesn't release his income tax returns, jumped President Obama today on several points, first his support for the availability of birth control for women and then on the president's supposed dishonor of God for insufficient charitable contributions. From Huffington Post:

His final attack on Obama was over his tithing, which refers to the 10 percent Christians are told to donate to the church or other charities. Obama paid about one percent of his income, Huckabee said, quoting from the Bible that tithing less is "stealing from God."

"If a person will rob God, that person will steal you blind, don't you ever forget it," he said.

Additionally, CBS had this Huckster quote:

"All respect due, he reported giving 1 percent of income to charity, and he wants to lecture me about being responsible as a steward of my resources?" he said, referring to Mr. Obama's statements calling on the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes.

From the White House statement on President Obama's last tax return:

Today, the President released his 2010 federal income and gift tax returns. He and the First Lady filed their income tax return jointly and reported an adjusted gross income of $1,728,096. The vast majority of the family’s income is the proceeds from the sale of the President’s books. The Obamas paid $453,770 in total federal tax.

The President and First Lady also reported donating $245,075 — or about 14.2% of their adjusted gross income — to 36 different charities. The largest reported gift to charity was a $131,075 contribution to the Fisher House Foundation. The President is donating the after-tax proceeds from his children’s book to a Fisher House scholarship fund for children of fallen and disabled soldiers. The President and First Lady also released their Illinois income tax return and reported paying $51,568 in state income taxes.

There is something in the Bible, isn't there, about bearing false witness?

Mr. Huckabee, release your tax return.

UPDATE: Says here Huckabee also misquoted Obama's remarks. About what you'd expect from the former leader of a Banana Republic.

Politico takes a look at Mike Huckabee's "leadership" PAC, which raised almost a half-million bucks last year and didn't give a dime to another candidate. It paid money to staff and others, including his daughter-in-law, and helped Huckabee get the Huckabee message out (which essentially is taken from Jesus — Mike Is Coming!)

Interesting that Politico focuses on how the PAC has gotten small donors to approve automatic charges, to the surprise of a few of them. At least one seemed happy, however, to view it as akin to tithing.

Mark it down now. If Mike Huckabee runs for president in 2016, he will not be releasing his federal income tax returns.

Read more here about his remarkably petulant defense of Mitt Romney for evading tax return release in which he manages to again don his Birther clothing to smear President Barack Obama.

Speaking on The O'Reilly Factor, Huckabee said of Romney, "Let him make this challenge: 'I'll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and the copy of his admission records to show whether he got any loans as a foreign student. When he releases that, talk to me about my tax returns.'"

Huckabee agreed with O'Reilly that candidates just provide fodder with such disclosure. He dusted off a favorite line he used repeatedly in Arkansas to turn away questions about potentially embarrassing subjects he didn't want to discuss:

And the thing is you get zero credit from the media for releasing them and then you buy yourselves a lot of grief. The question is, why would you help load a gun that's pointed at your own head?

Obviously, if you are hiding live ammo, the problem is not with your questioner but with you. But Huck gets away with this kind of sophistry. Huckabee made one release, to limited media, during his era as governor. It did provide some clues about the private money making through which he used his public life to raise speaking fees and the like from various sources.

Just when you're thinking how reasonable Mike Huckabee is capable of being, the other, darker Huck emerges and you remember all the reasons that his presidential candidacy, on balance, would be a very bad thing.

He goes to Michigan to raise money for Republican Senate candidate Gary Glenn, an old Huck pal.

Glenn, in his capacity as head of the American Family Association of Michigan, has been a vicious anti-gay activist, saying companies should not to hire gays on the grounds that "individuals who engage in homosexual behavior given all of its severe medical consequences [do not] constitute the best and the brightest."

Glenn has also openly advocated the criminalization of homosexuality:

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, has added his voice to a growing course of American leaders calling for the re-criminalization of homosexuality in the U.S.

In an e-mail to Michigan Messenger, here’s how Glenn responded when asked if he supported the criminalization move proposed by the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg’s comments last week on Hardball:

“The short answer to your question is yes, we believe that states should be free to regulate and prohibit behavior that’s a violation of community standards and a proven threat to public health and safety — including, as most of the United States did throughout its history, homosexual behavior.”