The Republican debates: bringing home the crazy

Desperate to prove himself more ignorant of American history than John McCain, presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee went a step further than claiming that America is a Christian nation founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles. He claimed that most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen.

During the Republican debate, Mike Huckabee said he believes one of the defining issues facing the country is the sanctity of human life. Arguing that the issue is of historical importance, he invoked the Declaration of Independence's rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and said that most of the signers of the declaration were clergymen.

Not even close.

Only one of the 56 was an active clergyman, and that was John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

[Edit] And in case you were wondering whether he really said something that dumb, here's the transcript:

HUCKABEE: There are some real issues out there in this country we need to be fighting for on behalf of the people. Now, one of them, quite frankly, I do believe, is the sanctity of human life...

(APPLAUSE)

... because I do believe that it is one of the defining issues of our culture and civilization in that it expresses our understanding that every single human being in this society has intrinsic value and worth.

When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen, they said that we have certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that.

And in fact, he's said some other stupid things recently:

Oh, I believe in science. I certainly do. In fact, what I believe in is, I believe in God. I don't think there's a conflict between the two. But if there's going to be a conflict, science changes with every generation and with new discoveries and God doesn't. So I'll stick with God if the two are in conflict.

Yeah. Changing theories in light of new evidence to come closer to a perfect understanding of the universe is worse than blindly believing what a pack of barbarians wrote down thousands of years ago. That's just the quality we need in a leader!