During an event Friday in Pella, Iowa, Huckabee said the crisis sparked by Bhutto’s death should lead to a crackdown on illegal immigrants from Pakistan. The Huckabee official told CNN that when he said that, Huckabee was trying to turn attention away from scrutiny of his foreign policy knowledge.

…Huckabee said 660 Pakistanis entered the country illegally last year. When asked by a reporter the source for that statistic, Huckabee appeared unsure, saying, “Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing, and I believe they are CIA and immigration numbers.” The Huckabee campaign later said the figure came from a March 2006 report by The Denver Post.

But the Border Patrol told CNN on Friday that it apprehended only “a handful” of illegal immigrants from Pakistan in 2007…

“But the most urgent thing to do is to offer our sincere sympathies and concerns to the family and to the people of Pakistan, and that’s the first thing we would be doing other than, again, trying to ascertain who’s behind it, and what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continued in Pakistan, suspension of the constitution,” Huckabee said.

…Conservative critics immediately pointed out that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf lifted the country’s state of martial law roughly two weeks ago.

Read on at CNN.

Small Town Cheers Huckabee’s Embrace of Faith – New York Times

…

“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.

…and I’m not referring to the spelling of “labeled”.

[Tony Blair] told the BBC that he had avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled “a nutter”.

From the the Beeb.

CBS News: “Did you actually see — with your own eyes — your father marching with Martin Luther King?”

Romney: “My own eyes? You know, I speak in the sense of I saw my dad become president of American Motors. I wasn’t actually there when he became president of American Motors, but I saw him in the figurative sense of he marched with Martin Luther King. My brother also remembers him marching with Martin Luther King and so in that sense I saw him march with Martin Luther King.”

Later he said, “I can’t even give you the time frame. I just remember that we talked about it. My brother also remembers my dad having spoken about the fact that he did not do political events on Sunday but that he decided at the last minute that he was going to break that self-imposed rule and participate and I think he did so on a Sunday as I recall.”

He added, “You know, I’m an English literature major as well. When we say, ‘I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn’t necessarily mean you were there — excuse me, the Super Bowl. I saw my dad become president of American Motors. Did that mean you were there for the ceremony? No, it’s a figure of speech.”

Appalling. Read on at CBS News.

Wondering why the Democratic Congress can’t seem to get anything done?

Well, okay, a good part of that is a disappointing spinelessness. But even more so, it’s the GOP:

The 49-member Senate Republican minority has done something no Senate minority in American history has ever done: they’ve filibustered more bills than any Congress ever has — and they broke the record with a full year to spare.

The latest came this morning, when the Senate GOP filibustered an omnibus budget bill, the 62nd Republican filibuster since the 110th Congress began in January.

…And by the way, just for good measure, let’s answer the trivia question. When was the previous record set? That would be the 107th Congress — the last time Republicans were in the minority.

Read on.

For all that we demonize him here at Bray New World, there’s this, from Reuters’ Pictures of the Year collection.

An enterprising YouTuber has remade the channel to how it was truly meant to be.

(You need to wait about a minute for it to really kick in.)

The War on Christmas continues, as brought to you by… um, Christians?

As Christmas draws near, Pastor John Foster won’t be decorating a tree, shopping for last-minute gifts or working on a holiday sermon for his flock. After all, it’s been 50 years since Christmas was anything more than a day of the week to him.

He’s one of very few American Christians who follow what used to be the norm in many Protestant denominations–rejecting the celebration of Christmas on religious grounds.

…Through much of the 19th century, schools and businesses remained open, Congress met in session and some churches closed their doors, lest errant worshippers try to furtively commemorate the day.

…That rejection was rooted in the lack of biblical sanction for Dec. 25 as the date of Jesus’ birth, as well as suspicion toward traditions that developed after the earliest days of Christianity. In colonial New England, this disapproval extended to actually making the holiday illegal, with celebration punishable by a fine.

Read on.

The next time I’m driving down the Jersey Turnpike, I will no longer be able to say, “Man, this state is killing me.”

New Jersey will become the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty under a measure lawmakers approved Thursday and the governor intends to sign within days.

Read on.

The Washington Post retells the relevant passage about a recent question in the White House briefing room that uncovered a glaring historical blind spot for her:

“I was panicked a bit because I really don’t know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Perino… “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

THIS IS THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY

Read on.

McSweeney’s presents James Bond
Films for the George W. Bush Era.

Uh-oh. Dick Cheney is not going to be happy someone spilled the truth. How are they going to justify a war with Iran now?

Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.

A declassified summary of the latest National Intelligence Estimate found with “high confidence” that the Islamic republic stopped an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.

Oh, wait. I forgot that under the Bush Doctrine, you don’t need facts to justify a war.