It was against this backdrop that Huckabee, the old Baptist preacher, delivered a rousing, emotionally powerful speech aimed straight at the hearts of the (many) cultural conservatives in the crowd. He saved abortion for the end, reminding attendees that “we are a people of life.” Then he slowly launched into a story about a visit to Israel that he’d taken with his daughter when she was 11 years old. At the end of a tour of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Huckabee told the crowd:

There was a guestbook there and my daughter reached into my pocket and took the pen out of my pocket and she started writing in the guestbook her name and our address. And there was a space there for comments. And I wondered, what would my daughter — 11 years old — write in that space provided. I’d hoped that somehow she would understand why her mother and I left what was a comfortable life for us to get involved in something that can be as tumultuous as politics. My daughter took that pen and she wrote words that I will never forget for as long as I live. These are the words she wrote: She wrote, “Why didn’t somebody do something?” And with that, she gave me the pen back. And I looked at those words and I thought: She got it. Why didn’t somebody do something? And ladies and gentlemen, let it never be that someday in the future of this wonderful nation that we call home, that some father has to look over his daughter’s shoulder and watch her words like that and ask the question about this country. Let it never happen that someday some father would have to hear his daughter as the question: Why didn’t somebody do something?”

Huckabee’s story brought the house down. (Watch the video if you want to understand the full impact.) And when the votes were tallied, there was a surprise: He’d finished in second place, ahead of Brownback — and far ahead of expectations. Within weeks, Brownback was out of the race and Huckabee’s steady climb to the top of the polls in Iowa was underway. (The Ames speech also won Huckabee some attention in Israel.)

Apparently, the Yad Vashem anecdote was such a hit Huckabee has taken to applying it to other topics. Over the weekend, Huckabee spoke at the annual NRA convention — the same venue where he made an awkward joke in 2008 about Barack Obama supposedly being shot at — and brought up the debt ceiling during his speech. Here’s how the Washington Post described his remarks:

[Huckabee] offered an anecdote that seemingly compared silence in the face of mounting debt in modern America to those who said nothing about the rise of the Nazis.

He recalled a family trip years ago to a Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. He said he was comforted when his young daughter, at the end of the tour, wrote unbidden in the guest book: “Why didn’t anybody do something?”

“Let there never be a time in this country when some father has to look over his daughter’s shoulder and see her ask the haunting question, ‘why didn’t somebody do something?’” he said.

So, to make a point about the debt ceiling at a meeting of gun owners, Huckabee repeated an anecdote about the Holocaust that he’d previously used to make a point about abortion in front of a crowd full of Christian conservatives.

This time the result hasn’t been quite as positive for Huckabee. As Steve Benen notes, he has since been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman — which prompted Huckabee to snap that, “Israel and Jewish people need to make friends, not insult the ones they have.” and to demand an apology from Foxman.

The world must see bin Laden roasting in the lake of fire, in order to discourage future would-be terrorists from taking up arms against us. How can Americans feel any sense of closure, at all, without the image of the al-Qaida leader suffering eternal torment at the hands of the devil? Until we have definitive evidence of bin Laden weeping and gnashing his teeth for all eternity, tortured forever by the Beast, we will never prove to those conspiratorial and superstitious Muslims that he has been punished for his wicked deeds.

While some may feel that simply announcing that bin Laden has been killed and justice served is enough, true leaders know that there can be no cleansing catharsis without either a ritual display of the body or at least assurances that the man’s eternal soul will never know peace.

Mike Huckabee knows this. Sarah Palin knows this. Now is not the time to “pussy-foot around” the issue of a picture of Osama bin Laden in hell. The picture is part of “the mission,” after all: We raid his compound, shoot him in the head, send the photo of his body around the world, and finally illustrate in unflinching detail his last, worst punishment.

Actions are not enough! We need words. And pictures illustrating the actions.

If Barack Obama’s post-bin Laden kill approval “bump” does not last as long as it should, it will be entirely his fault, for not repeatedly, loudly proclaiming that the terrorist will burn in hell forever, or releasing a photograph of his mutilated, repulsive corpse. How will the American people know that the president hated bin Laden at all if he won’t validate Sarah Palin’s blood lust?

Democratic presidents are already at a disadvantage on all matters of national security, because while they tend to manage foreign policy more credibly and successfully, everyone knows they simply don’t worship violence and war with as much vigor as Republicans. A Democratic president has to assassinate twice as many terrorists as a Republican, much as they have to deport 10 times as many immigrants, to prove their patriotism.

If Barack Obama wants credit for tracking down Osama bin Laden, he needs to prove to us all that the bad man went to a bad place because he was mean to us.

On the Blaze, Beck’s news website, Kevin Balfe, Beck’s primary ghostwriter, has responded today by calling Huckabee a liar. Because, he argues, Michelle Obama and Mike Huckabee do want to literally take candy from babies’ mouths:

Michelle Obama is heading up an effort to combat childhood obesity. One of the first major initiatives of this campaign was the “Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010.” Here is what Huckabee said about it at the time: “By passing a bill that addresses the nutritional quality of school lunches, an important step is being taken to give children choices that will make them healthier and more productive.”

Ok, great, so he likes the law…but what does that law actually do? Well, according to USA Today: “it gives the USDA the authority to set nutritional standards for all foods regularly sold in schools during the school day, including vending machines…”

To translate, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT will have DIRECT CONTROL over whether or not certain foods–say a Milky Way bar–can be put into a vending machine at a public school.

With me so far?

Ok, so now for the big reveal…the Huckabee Lie. In his public statement attacking Glenn, here’s what he claims:

“I’m no fan of [Michelle Obama's] husband’s policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented—either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another ‘boogey man’ hiding in the closet that he and only he can see. The First Lady’s approach is about personal responsibility—not the government literally taking candy from a baby’s mouth.”

Actually, Governor, no. I know you‘re so immune to political spin that you probably don’t even recognize it anymore, but THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THIS ACT THAT YOU SUPPORT DOES.

I know the definition of the word “literally” has drifted a bit since Joe Biden took office, but unless this bill calls for jackbooted USDA thugs to storm into public schools and rip Milky Ways directly from the mouths of … babies who are in school for some reason, then no, this act does not actually take candy from babies.

There is, in fact, absolutely nothing in this bill stopping any public school student from bringing an entire crate of delicious candy bars to school and eating each and every one of them during recess. Our freedom to begin the process of eating ourselves to death as early as possible is still safe!

While Balfe characterizes the bill, and Obama’s campaign in general, as “federal intervention in local issues like school lunch nutrition,” the USDA already “intervenes” in school lunches (the National School Lunch act is more than 60 years old) and sets nutritional standards for government-subsidized meals. (Of course, demanding healthier school lunches without giving schools a lot more money to spend on food is pretty unrealistic but on the other hand LIBERTY DON’T TREAD ON ME FOUNDERS FREEDOM etc. etc.)

Huckabee’s crime? He supports Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative, because modern-day culture-warrior right-wingers do actually think encouraging healthy behavior for children is an infringement on liberty. And because of that suppot, Huckabee is clearly a left-wing Nazi Progressive — “like John McCain” — who conspired with McCain to … sabotage the Romney campaign, in 2008. (???)

Beck and Huckabee are actually both in the same business — TV and related marketing ventures — and, for now at least, hustle on the same channel. Huckabee is a Fox talk show host, (the fact that he seems to enjoy being a Fox talk show host may yet save us from his presidency) and Beck is soon leaving his daily hour-long history lecture and therapy session.

So Huckabee responded to Beck with a post on his PAC’s website. And it is a very entertaining response. It does not really pull any punches:

This week Glenn Beck has taken to his radio show to attack me as a Progressive, which he has said is the same as a “cancer” and a “Nazi.” What did I do that apparently caused him to link me to a fatal disease and a form of government that murdered millions of innocent Jews? I had the audacity—not of hope—but the audacity to give respect to the efforts of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to address childhood obesity. I’m no fan of her husband’s policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented—either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another “boogey man” hiding in the closet that he and only he can see. The First Lady’s approach is about personal responsibility—not the government literally taking candy from a baby’s mouth. He seems to fancy himself a prophet of sorts for his linking so many people and events together to describe a massive global conspiracy for pretty much everything. Sadly, he seems equally inept at recognizing the obvious fact that children are increasingly obese and that we now see clinical evidence of diseases in children that as recent as 20 years ago were found only in adults, such as Type 2 diabetes. The costs to our nation are staggering in increase health care expenses, but it even effects national security with now 75% of young men between the ages of 17 and 24 are unfit for military service primarily due to obesity! His ridiculous claim that John McCain and I collaborated and conspired in the 2008 campaign is especially laughable. Is he not aware that McCain and I were competitors—not cohorts? Beck needs to stick to conspiracies that can’t be so easily de-bunked by facts. Why Beck has decided to aim his overloaded guns on me is beyond me. But he ought to clean his gun and point it more carefully lest it blow up in his face like it did this time.

I think Huck wrote this himself, in a hurry (it’s clearly unedited), which is pretty funny, and probably not the sort of thing a man running for president would be allowed to do.

But my favorite presidential jokesters — the two wackiest cards on the campaign trail — are former governors Tim Pawlenty, R-Yuksville, and Mitt Romney, R-Laffsachusetts. Let’s start with Tim:

Here is Tim Pawlenty telling a funny joke about America hitting Barack Obama’s car with golf clubs, or something:

More recently, Pawlenty attempted to tell a series of “topical” jokes about the Lady Gaga and the Justin Bieber that the kids are so into these days:

When Pawlenty is off-script is when his wit truly shines. Just watch him attempt “banter” on Fox & Friends:

Yes, “tubing in the polls.” Very funny. Makes a lot of sense, as a joke.

Tim Pawlenty also likes to talk about his “red-hot smoking wife.” Unfortunately, while she may be hot, she also refuses to have sex with him:

That is a very good joke and not at all just an incredibly weird thing for a presidential candidate to say.

Speaking of normal human behavior, pander-bot Mitt Romney has sampled what you Earth creatures call “humor” as well. He is not very good at it. But, admirably, he tries very hard. He has told so, so many jokes. This is a joke about Mitt Romney trying to win a sheep, I think. I don’t actually get it:

Here is Mitt Romney telling like three jokes. He starts with one right from his “jokes for public speaking” book and then spends like three minutes setting up a very lukewarm baseball joke. (And then he tells one of those popular jokes about how his wife would rather have sex with someone else. Republicans: Their hot wives are not attracted to them, am I right?)

Romney has even tried some non-wife-related self-deprecating humor:

Of course, the only genuinely funny thing Mitt Romney has ever said/done was this: