LaHuckabee

Steve S. e-mails this nugget from Zev Chafets’ New York Times Magazine profile of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee:

The governor was especially happy that morning about an impending endorsement he expected (and received the following day) from Tim LaHaye, the author of the apocalyptic Left Behind series of novels. Left Behind is wildly popular among evangelicals, who have bought more than 65 million copies, making LaHaye a very rich man and one of the few writers who is also a major philanthropist. … Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister … considers the Left Behind books, in which the world comes to a violent end as Jesus triumphs over Satan, a “compelling story written for nontheologians.”

That makes me worry about what Huckabee means when he says he supports “arts education.” But his endorsement of the World’s Worst Books also makes one wonder how much the candidate agrees with LaHaye’s warmed-over John Birch Society insanity. When Huckabee parrots Bill O’Reilly’s conspiracy theories about billionaire George Soros, does he think of Soros as “Jonathan Stonagal,” the many-tentacled Jewish banker in Left Behind?

LaHaye and his books are ridiculous, but they are not inconsequential. Huckabee’s enthusiastic acceptance of LaHaye’s endorsement requires several follow-up questions that Chafets doesn’t ask. Here are just a few of those:

1. Does Huckabee believe that the Rapture and the End of the World are likely to occur in his lifetime? If so, how does that affect his views on foreign or fiscal or environmental policy?

2. Does he share LaHaye’s belief in the coming of The Antichrist? How would he respond to LaHaye’s readers who would view his support for NAFTA as a step toward One World Government? How would he respond to those who would view his proposed universal 23-percent sales tax as a precursor to the Mark of the Beast?

3. Does he share LaHaye’s belief that the United Nations is a tool of Satan? Does he have a better grasp of the U.N.’s actual role and function than LaHaye does?

4. Does Huckabee believe that Israel’s role in “Bible prophecy” should shape American policy toward Israel and the Middle East? If so, how?

5. If the world is destined to, very soon, descend into chaos and Armageddon, then is any kind of cultural/political/economic progress possible or meaningful?

6. Is the End of the World something he’s eagerly looking forward to?

(Todd Gitlin proposes some more questions for Huckabee. via)