477141989_046cc44d94_m.jpgI'm really getting tired of Wallace's Mike Huckabee's cynical exploitation of his religion when it's politically convenient, and his cowardly abandoning it when it's not.

During the YouTube debate, he was asked a tough question about what Jesus would say about the death penalty. He slickly dodged it, saying "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office." Ha ha ha.

But when the former Baptist Minister was governor of Arkansas, he suggested that Jesus was pro-capital punishment. Not so funny.

Yesterday, Huckabee seemed annoyed that he was asked so often whether he thought creationism should be taught in public schools.

"That's an irrelevant question to ask me — I'm happy to answer what I believe, but what I believe is not what's going to be taught in 50 different states," Huckabee said. "Education is a state function. The more state it is, and the less federal it is, the better off we are."

But at another function:

Huckabee, at a dinner in Des Moines, told reporters that the theory of intelligent design, whose proponents believe an intelligent cause is the best way to explain some complex and orderly features of the universe, should be taught in schools as one of many viewpoints. "I don't think schools ought to indoctrinate kids to believe one thing or another," he said.

So for one audience, he says the issue of what our children are being taught in public schools is "irrelevant," and for another, he's arguing that teaching sound science is tantamount to "indoctrination." C'mon.

Huckabee has made his faith central to his campaign. Here's video of Huckabee attributing his rise in the polls to God. The cause is more likely His CHRISTIAN LEADER spots, obviously designed to attack Romney's cult Mormonism, contains this:

"Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me. I don't have to wake up every day wondering what do I need to believe," Huckabee says in the ad. "Let us never sacrifice our principles for anybody's politics. Not now, not ever."

What a flim-flam. If you're going to say, "Vote for me because of what I believe," then you can't run away from questions about what you believe.

Don't forget -- what Huckabee is doing by dodging and weaving every time someone asks him directly about his fundamentalist beliefs is in violation of his own religion -- supposedly the thing that "defines" him. Luke 6:22 says, "Blessed are you when people hate you, avoid you, insult you, and slander you because you are committed to the Son of Man." Translation: say what you believe and let the chips fall where they may. (Guess something the nuns taught me stuck.)

Huckabee needs to either stop these cutsey little evasions about his faith or stop using it to get elected.

He can't have it both ways.