Does Huckabee Have a Grasp on the Issues?

Not only do I not trust Mike Huckabee's recent conversion on the illegal alien/border control issue, he appears to be all over the map and a little confused about this issue.

From the New York Times:

On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.”

On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks.

“When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,” he told reporters in Pella. “And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.”

In fact, far more illegal immigrants come from the Philippines, Korea, China and Vietnam, according to recent estimates from the Department of Homeland Security.

Asked how a border fence would help keep out Pakistani immigrants, Mr. Huckabee argued that airplane security was already strong, but that security at the southern United States border was dangerously weak.

Okay, I'll buy that Pakistani terrorists might come to Mexico and then cross our borders. However, their greatest difficulty might be with Mexico, since Mexico's immigration and alien controls are far tougher than ours. But really, his response to this came across as pretty muddled.

But it sounds like his incorrect assertion about how many illegals are coming from what country just makes him continue to sound ill-informed on this issue, like when he said in the past that illegal immigration wasn't a real problem in the first place.

That, and the fact that he got it wrong about whether Pakistan was still under martial law. Someone who wants to be president should be on top of issues like this.

And "apologizing" for Bhutto's assassination isn't the thing to do...unless he thinks we had something to do with it. I know Huckabee's pretty liberal, but surely he isn't liberal enough to have joined the blame-America-first crowd. Probably just a mis-statement. But a mis-statement that makes Bush's "misunderestimated" verbal gaffs pretty inconsequential in comparison