Arkansas Blog

That's how one analyst describes the Huckster's playing a negative ad at a news conference to announce he was not going negative. But he might get the last laugh if all the local TV stations that received the Huckabee ad turn it over to their newsrooms for repeat free airing. It's one more episode that could batter him with the press corps, though.

And another are-you-sh***in'-me reaction.

Joe Klein uses words "Huckabust" and "implosion." Note, however, that he is giving a free airing to the ad Huckabee thought too negative to run.

Ron Fournier wasn't too impressed.

Nor was Daniel Nasaw of the Guardian, late of the D-G, perhaps because The Huckster must be dishonest about Nasaw's past reporting to brand Romney a liar. Seelye of the NY Times again dusts off "jujitsu" for Huckabee. Why not simply "hypocritical blankety-blank?"

And, oh yeah, huckabee was nailed for  lying about the amount of time that elapsed before information was out that he should have known when he flunked the NIE question.

And, on another topic, the clamor is growing -- National Review, Slate, American Prospect, San Diego Union -- for a definitive response from Huckabee on whether he had surgical assistance of some form (careful: the question must not be restricted to a single specific procedure) in his weight loss.