The Village Idiot

THE VILLAGE IDIOT....So when Mike Huckabee told Katie Couric that we ought to be "free of energy consumption in this country within a decade," what do you think he really meant? There are a couple of possibilities, but I suppose the most likely is "free of energy imports," or perhaps "free of foreign oil."

This, of course, has the benefit of not being literally impossible, but I wonder if anyone will bother to follow up with him about this? After all, ending foreign oil consumption in the next decade is the next best thing to impossible, and in any case, would require federal action of a staggering size and scope — certainly far more staggering than anything Huckabee has ever given the remotest indication of supporting. Basically, he was just randomly shooting his mouth off without the slightest idea of what he was talking about.

So, again: will anyone press him on this? Or will he get the village idiot treatment that Republicans since Ronald Reagan have so often gotten, where they're sort of expected to say harebrained stuff and nobody holds it against them? After all, this has nothing to do with Huckabee's hair, his cleavage, or his middle name, only with the fact that he displays an almost comical, grade-school ignorance of even the bare basics of national energy policy. And who cares about that in a president of the United States?