Intellectuals tend to imagine that when the fascists show up, they don't know how to have fun. How seriously, they ask, should we take a joker like George W. Bush, who's just as comfortable downing a few beers as taking a morning jog, do to the country? Yet, as Slavoj Zizek once said about Umberto Eco, the "most disturbing" aspect of this view is the faith in "the liberating, anti-totalitarian force of laughter, of ironic distance ... " The reality, meanwhile, is that "in contemporary societies, democratic or totalitarian, ... cynical distance, laughter, irony, are, so to speak, part of the game. The ruling ideology is not meant to be taken seriously or literally. Perhaps the greatest danger for totalitarianism is people who take its ideology literally ... "

Here we have Mike Huckabee, a man even folksier and more self-ironizing than W., who likes wearing trucker caps and playing the bass: could such a likeable dude be so bad? Yes, he is. Wake up--it's time to recognize that this guy is just as dangerous as Bush, if not more ... he wants women to stay at home, vows to end abortion, implies Mormons are Satanists (i.e., evangelical Christianity is the only acceptable religion) ... Yet if he does all of this with a smile and a self-deprecating laugh, he gets away with it ... The embodiment of anti-intellectualism at its worst.

Am having a hard time imagining the Al Quada tapes that end with the declaration "Death to the evil imperialist demonic leader President Huckabee!"