Why is everyone surprised at Huckabee's latest parry?

He is just doing what huckster bible-bleaters have always done.

They are masters at getting someone else to do the dirty work.

That negative add he is 'above running' is out there now, and it is getting barrels of ink and billions and billions of electrons.

Standing before a banner reading "Enough is Enough" and flanked by five large charts attacking the record of rival Mitt Romney, a haggard-looking Huckabee said that the fight to win Thursday's Republican caucus had gotten "out of hand" and "out of control" and that he would refrain from any more negative campaigning.

Huckabee's unorthodox media event comes as a barrage of new polls has battered his lead in Iowa and put his campaign at risk of crash-and-burn. Some of those surveys now show Romney regaining a lead he had maintained over most of the year until Huckabee began to surge ahead in recent weeks.

"Conventional political wisdom is that you must counter-punch," the former Arkansas governor said. "When you get hit you should hit back. And every bit of advice I have been given says that is exactly what we should do." Huckabee explained that he, indeed, prepared and produced a TV spot attacking Romney, sent it to local TV stations but had just given the directive to pull it from airing. "This morning I ordered them to hold the ads," Huckabee said. "From now we will run only ads that say why I should be president not why Mitt Romney shouldn't be president."

Then, amid loud gasps and laughter from the more than 150 reporters on hand, Huckabee announced he would show the assembled press the same ad. As dozens of TV cameras whirred, and after two false starts, the 30-second spot assaulting Romney's record was shown in full. The tag line of the spot ended with the narrator saying of Romney: "If a man's dishonest trying to get the job, he'll be dishonest on the job"

Of course, the room exploded at the seeming inconsistency, because the reporters just don't get Southern evangelicals. I've been a visiting outsider in their land, and this is right in keeping with what I would expect.

The man isn't educated, but he ain't stupid. He's the kind of preacher that figured out a long time ago that if he could string some words together that would make people who actually own pitchforks and hunting rifles willing to accept their limited lot in life while giving him ten percent, the lid can be kept on a while longer and he can live a good life without ever doing an honest days work.

And now, the M$M is spreading his negative ad for free.

Y'all have been had.