“So, how much swag did you get away with?”

Poor Rudy. While Judi contemplated which tiara she would wear to her coronation and Rudy presumed he had the candidacy for President all wrapped up when he won "Most Likable Candidate" in the AP polls (which makes you wonder who the hell they were asking), along comes Josh Marshall and Wayne Barrett and Ray Kelly and most of the population of New York City to say, "Maybe y’all weren’t listening closely enough the first time we said that this guy is barely qualified to president of the local Kiwanis Club, let alone the United States."

Rudy thought nothing of using New York City’s Finest to walk his mistress’ dog and schlep her around the city (unlike the current mayor’s girlfriend, who takes the subway). Any normal person would be properly mortified by this latest revelation and apologize to the world (or at least to the taxpayers). But not Rudy. Like Dick Cheney, bending the rules until they snap is just part of his "due".

But Rudy’s not the only Republican candidate with a rather inflated sense of entitlement and an equally short fuse. Meet Rudy’s identical country cousin: Mike Huckabee. Yes, THAT Mike Huckabee.

According to the Arkansas Times’ Max Brantley, Mr. Huckabee, like Rudy Giuliani, is a thin-skinned, self-righteous and grasping man who "does not take kindly to journalists who practice journalism." Don’t let his folksy, good-humored demeanor fool you, Brantley warns. During his tenure as governor, Huckabee certainly gave the local media plenty to write about:

In the governor’s office, his grasp never exceeded his reach. Furniture he’d received to doll up his office was carted out with him when he left, after he’d crushed computer hard drives so nobody could ever get a peek behind the curtain of the Huckabee administration.

Until my paper, the Arkansas Times, blew the whistle, he converted a governor’s mansion operating account into a personal expense account, claiming public money for a doghouse, dry-cleaning bills, panty hose and meals at Taco Bell. He tried to claim $70,000 in furnishings provided by a wealthy cotton grower for the private part of the residence as his own, until he learned ethics rules prevented it. When a disgruntled former employee disclosed memos revealing all this, the Huckabee camp shut her up by repeatedly suggesting she might be vulnerable to prosecution for theft because she’d shared documents generated by the state’s highest official.

And that ain’t the half of it. Like Giuliani’s "I Saved NYC" hucksterism, Huckabee cloaks himself in the goodwill that attends his position as a Baptist minister, but scratch that surface and we find something far less appealing.

Ask the retarded Fort Smith teenager, raped by her stepfather, who sought Medicaid funding for an abortion as federal law required. Huckabee stood in the hospital door, at least figuratively, to prevent state funding. Ask the gay people belittled by his cracks about "Adam and Steve." Ask the scientists who’ve seen evolution virtually disappear from the textbooks and classrooms of Arkansas with his administration’s acquiescence.

Social issues alone should give moderates pause. He championed a law in Arkansas making it harder to get a divorce, the so-called covenant marriage law that has been widely ignored except when he and his wife recommitted in a Valentine’s Day publicity stunt held in a 17,000-seat arena.

Now "America’s Mayor" has some stiff competition from "America’s Formerly Obese, Gee-tar Strummin’ Preacher." Both are equally capable of shredding what remains of the Constitution and walking away with the White House china.

Listen to Max Brantley air "good ol’ boy" Huckabee’s dirty linens here.

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