Why Are Liberals So Afraid of Baby Jesus?

He was America's first born-again president. He was deacon of a Baptist church that — during his bid for the presidency — he had to sever his membership with because they would not allow blacks to become members.

Shades of Mike Huckabee.

Shades of Mitt Romney.

But I'm talking about liberal stalwart Jimmy Carter. The far left has no problem with Carter's faith and never feared that he would be more of a theologian than politician.

And yet...

Huckabee runs a Christmas-themed ad. The liberals see a floating cross and believe that alone makes the man unfit to be president. Instead, I think that makes some on the far left too paranoid to trust with a vote.

The floating cross as subliminal imagery of Christ? How about that huge Christ-mas tree sitting over Huckabee's shoulder as actual imagery of Christ? You know, just like the tree that sits at the White House in Washington, where all the government offices are shut down on Dec. 25 — the day we celebrate as the birth of baby Jesus.

And yet, despite the fact that the majority of us acknowledge Christmas in some way, in typically liberal fashion the fringe uses the censorship of political correctness to turn "Merry Christmas" into a verboten phrase.

What's particularly galling is the left's selective prosecution of religiosity. There is, as first mentioned, Jimmy Carter and his faith, which causes no liberal ripples. And few liberals batted an eye when Barack Obama launched his Embrace the Change tour with black ministers — despite the fact that one was (and still is) a homophobe. When Harold Ford Jr. was campaigning for the U.S. Senate in 2006, he ran a campaign ad filmed in a church and publicly affirmed his faith. There wasn't a word of derision spoken from the left, as they knew such an ad would get Ford votes. And no one on the left accused the Rev. Jesse Jackson or the Rev. Al Sharpton of being too tied to the cloth during their presidential runs.

As a co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, I've had the opportunity to talk to Gov. Huckabee on a couple of occasions. He's no zealot. I don't agree with Huckabee on every issue. But then, I don't agree with any candidate on every issue. Huckabee does agree that Jimi Hendrix was probably the greatest guitarist ever, which is not a reason to vote for him, but certainly a reason to at least give a listen to what he has to say. And during his tenure as governor, Huckabee didn't exactly turn Arkansas into a theocracy.

If I could give the governor one tip to quiet his critics, it would be to run an ad somewhere acknowledging the start of Kwanzaa on Dec. 26.

By the way, how many of you liberals even knew on what day Kwanzaa began?

If the far left had some guile, they'd embrace religion rather than reject it — as Obama has smartly tried to do. After all, a couple of the more prominent Republican presidential candidates have proved you can still be a man of faith while living on only eight or nine of the Ten Commandments.

3:54 PM ET | 12-20-2007 | permalink | comments (28) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)