I’ve been taking it easy lately, and plan on being three sheets to the wind by the end of today. Thus, if not for spotting Teh Funny I wouldn’t care about this from Mike Huckabee: “Attack ads suck. For example, here’s my attack ad.”

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee took an unorthodox gamble in his bid for the presidency Monday, unveiling an attack ad against Republican rival Mitt Romney and then immediately pledging not to run it in the hopes of appealing to the better nature of Iowa voters.

Flanked by posters his campaign produced to question Romney’s credibility, Huckabee decried gutter politics in America but then directed the attention of scores of reporters and television cameras to a movie screen, where he played the 30-second hit piece on Romney’s honesty and record.

Honestly, I never really got the point behind the fuss about attack ads. Airing outright lies is one thing (*cough*Hillary*cough*, *cough*didjaknowobamaisamuslim*coughcough*) but if you just point out what you see as negatives of an opponent — and they’re true — then where’s the problem? One can argue as personal preference that they don’t like negative campaigning, seeing it as a sign of how you more vote AGAINST people than you vote FOR them here*, however extending personal preference to a universally applied moral rule is not only stupid, it’s reason #1 why politics itself amounts to formalized armed robbery. If you’re going to jump in the pigpen, then don’t bitch about the mud.

I’ve got to admit, in this case it was surprisingly clever:

“I pulled the ad. I do not want it to be run at all,” he said. But within minutes, the ad was being played on national television and had been posted on blogs and other Web sites — without costing his campaign a penny. (emphasis mine)

Shameless as hell. He’s a former minister though, so I guess he knows a thing or two about that.

(* - of course, I would argue that anti-votes are just another symptom of statism & how it inherently turns every issue into a cockfight. But you know that already.)