I haven't been paying that close attention to NRO's editorial stance recently, but is Romney officially their guy? When I read The Corner, they seem to have a lot Giuliani folks, because, after all, "the war trumps everything."

One of the interesting news items of the day is that Joe is going onto the Huckabee staff, so this is his new day job.

In Christian circles, "Apologist" can take on the meaning of taking on an intellectual defense of the Gospel. He seems to be a Huckabee apologist in the best sense of the word, except that his most recent post was more of "So's your old man Romney" than a solid defense of Huckabee.

We're going to have an interesting scuffle in these conservative realms, broadly defined, in the next few months. Hopefully, we can keep it friendly as we back our various guys.

David: I took Joe for his word when he suggested NR had endorsed Romney. I'm not positive this is true so I'll investigate.

Mark: I know that NR, like any publication, has its fair share of faults. But an unfair bias of some sort isn't one of them. Right or wrong NR generally stakes out its position out of principle. So it is a sad irony that Joe, failing to note that he's employed by Huckabee, accuses NR of not assessing Huckabee objectively. I hope Joe avoids the trap of slinging baseless accusations ("The Editors know that most conservatives will take their opinion as gospel and will believe that they have done their research") and doesn't become a hack. It'd be a shame if he does.

***I took Joe for his word when he suggested NR had endorsed Romney.***

I actually went back and changed that a bit. The reason I kept referring to "The Editors" is because that piece was written by K-Lo. She is an unapologetic Romney supporter, so my intention was to subtly point out that she was letting her own bias interfere with the magazine's editorial tone.

***So it is a sad irony that Joe, failing to note that he's employed by Huckabee, accuses NR of not assessing Huckabee objectively.***

I'm not employed by Huckabee yet. I'm still a free agent. And K-Lo knew about my impending move to Huckabee before the post. She outed me (with my permission) in order to make that clear.

And that Goldberg article was a travesty. I'm with Mark on this one. They need to get out of Manhattan and start interacting with real conservatives again. The fact that some of them think that Giuliani(!) is a conservative is rather telling.

Joe, c'mon. K-Lo knowing you work (or will work) for Huckabee is vastly differently than openly and honestly stating so in your post.

As for the Goldberg piece, why have your responses to Huckabee criticisms continually pointed to other far less conservative candidates as defenses? Goldberg may or may not support Giuliani (his compliments of Giuliani seem to fall far short of endorsement IMO), but this is no way addresses what seem to be quite valid critiques of Huckabee. You've simply offered up a clear logical fallacy.

Even if one didn't already know Joe was a Huckabee supporter, it wouldn't take much looking on his blog to find that out, so I don't fault him for not explicitly pointing that out in his NR rebuttal.

Josh has a point that Joe's rebuttal would be better if he actually addressed the NR critiques, but on the other hand Joe has a valid point that Romney (and Giuliani, too) has a similarly "statist" record, so why is NR singling out Huckabee for these criticisms?

For me, though, the NR criticisms hit a chord which had been bothering me about Huckabee since his recent pronouncement that he opposed letting states determine their own abortion laws. And what's up with Huckabee's interest in a national ban on smoking? I find smoking revolting, but a national ban is about the last thing we need.