Mike Huckabee leads among the 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls, but his share of the vote is only 19 percent, according to a new comprehensive Gallup poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. From Gallup:

It’s a given that Republican candidates for president must visit Israel and kiss Benjamin Netanyahu’s ring. Willard did it, so has Huck — who called Bebe “one of the world’s great leaders” — as has The Quitter just this week. And they always heap praise on the far-right Israeli Prime Minister, and sometimes take swipes at Obama. And who is this man they’re siding with over their own country?

Yep, it’s Dan Quayle/Murphy Brown — all over again. But one wonders: how does Huck feel about Bristol Palin?

Keep digging, Huck.

Mike Huckabee’s explanation that he “misspoke” about President Obama’s imaginary childhood in Kenya isn’t going to fly.

In which I ask the question: If Stephen Colbert won’t show you Mike Huckabee squirming, can we really hope that anyone in the “serious” media will?

We know what Republicans want out of a continuing resolution – deep cuts and policy changes that would block just about the entire Obama agenda of the first two years. Now we know precisely what Democrats want, at least in the short term. Harry Reid will introduce a “clean” continuing resolution next week that will freeze government funding at 2010 levels for 30 days. There’s this conceit in calling reductions from Obama’s 2011 budget request “cuts,” but that budget never got adopted. So while Reid calls this $41 billion in cuts, it’s really just a freeze at the current levels.

This may seem like the right wing — in both Israel and the U.S. — is in a pickle, caught between defending freedom and defending dictatorship. But I think they’re just working to define the new reality, and getting an early start on denouncing whatever following Mubarak in Egypt as a radical Islamist puppet government. I think this could play in the US media – we’re already seeing some of that – but worldwide it can and should be met with total condemnation. If we had smart Democrats they’d highlight this as well.

Of course he did. Because being a Republican candidate for president in 2011 means you have to take the Likud position on everything.

Over the past 12 days the Gallup daily tracking poll found Obama’s job approval numbers have been net positive every day.