IOWANS MAY NOT CARE, BUT WILL A DEAD DOG'S GHOST COME BACK TO BITE HUCKABEE IN THE ASS?

Ah... a break in the weather. I've tried not to burden you-- unless you also read my travel blog-- with tales of the sweltering December heat wave in Bangkok, much less comfortable than it was in Myanmar. Until a couple days ago, the temperature never dipped below 93, and between the intense humidity, the ghastly pollution and the rest of the symptoms of manmade "weather" you find in most tropical overcongested concete jungles, it's been pretty hideous. But these last few days Thais think they're in the dead of winter as thermometers plummet into the 80s. Brrrr...

This morning Thais-- and people all over the world-- woke up and were asked to contemplate unimaginably icy temperatures in bizarre, exotic, and picturesque-sounding locales no one had heretofore ever heard of-- like Ottumwa, Mashalltown, Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Fort Dodge and the ominous sounding Storm Lake. Bangkok TV gave the impossibly cold weather forecast for these places, among the most talked about locations on he planet today-- right up there with Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Gaza and the smoke-free Left Bank. Everywhere knows where Iowa is and everyone now knows what a caucus is, and, as uninterested as many Americans still are, people all over the world are following the primaries with great attention. Bush is the most detested and reviled character in the world-- far more hated, thanks to his own arrogance and bungling, than Osama bin-Laden or any other tin-pot dictator. Even if more any more sensible Americans are fed up with Iowa's and New Hampshire's inordinate influence on the presidential picking process, people around the world find it fascinating.

Thursday is just about over here. Night has fallen. I imagine people in Iowa are deciding how many layers of clothing they need to bundle up in before heading out to their caucuses.

I imagine Fredrick of Hollywood is praying his wife will let him drop out and go spend the rest of his life peddling influence and raking in corporate cash. People are already speculating he will join other GOP insiders-- like Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Richard Burr, Jon Ky, Tim Pawlenty, and former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer. McCain will probably wind up as the GOP nominee (2008's Bob Dole)-- unless the swiftboat crew get traction with their last minute (probably true) smear against him. So while Romney team member, recently defeated one-term Missouri extremist Senator Jim Talent, promises Iowans that Flip Flop Mitt is-- and has always been-- a devout anti-gay jihadi, Rush Limbaugh does his bit for the GOP Establishment to stick the shiv into The Hucksterbee.

"Ladies and gentlemen," babbled the drug-addicted Republican propagandist, "Governor Huckabee, mighty fine man and is a great Christian, is not a conservative, he’s just not If you look at his record as governor, he’s got some conservative tendencies on things but he’s certainly not the most conservative of the candidates running on the Republican side." Limbaugh has never been a Giuliani supporter and he also took a swipe at McCain. "The idea that he’s a great conservative in this race is an affront to conservatives." Limbaugh accused the Insider media of "pushing McCain hard."

Recognizing that Hilary Clinton is likely to be the next president of the United States, the drug-addled Limbaugh warned that "If our nominee is either not conservative and is pandering to the left trying to get some of their votes, or if our nominee is so afraid of his record that he’s relying on identity politics to get votes or if our nominee decides that the only way he can win is to go out and pick off some libs in the northeast and out in the west, it’s going to be a bloodbath."

Now what about the presumed Republican winner in Iowa? John Hanchette, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and onetime managing editor of the Arkansas Gazette who knew Huckabee long before any of the Beltway pundits ever heard of him, thinks Huckabee's past is going to catch up with him-- quickly. Go to the link if you want to read about all the money Huckabee made selling state jobs and about how he helped get rapists and murderers out of prison.

But Hanchette feels there's something else in the Huckster's past that will be even more damaging: a dead dog.

Newsweek magazine reported last issue that Huckabee interceded in 1998 when his son David, then 17, was fired from his job as a Boy Scout camp counselor at Camp Pioneer in rural Arkansas after he and a friend were accused of hanging a stray dog by throwing it and a rope over a railing to a 20-foot drop, then-- when that didn't kill it-- slitting its throat, then finally stoning the poor creature to death. The Animal Legal Defense Fund heard about it, got all over the case and asked for a criminal investigation.

"Research shows that if animal abusers are not appropriately penalized for their actions," wrote lawyer Pamela D. Frasch, director of the ALDF's anti-cruelty division, to the Boy Scouts of America national office, "they most likely will continue to commit abusive crimes in the future." The Boy Scouts national office apparently did squat about this. David Huckabee later made Eagle Scout.

The director of the Arkansas State Police at the time, John Bailey, told Newsweek he started to look into it, but that Huckabee's chief of staff and personal attorney "leaned on" him to drop the matter. He refused. A few months later, Huckabee fired him. The former FBI chief in Little Rock, one I.C. Smith, corroborates the state police executive's version. He told Newsweek Huckabee "without question, was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son."

Huckabee's response to all this is less than convincing. Again using CNN's "Larry King Show" as a forum, he said "categorically, that is absolutely not true. I never used my influence."

He told Newsweek the dog was "absolutely, I guess, emaciated" and tried to portray his son's actions as one big misunderstanding and either a mercy killing or almost a matter of self-defense. On CNN he said, "There was a dog that came in. It was mangy. It looked like it was going to attack. He was a staffer at the camp. They put the dog down. They didn't do a good job of talking to the leaders... there was no criminal activity."

The immensely influential Humane Society Legislative Fund-- now investigating the matter-- says that's because Arkansas is one of the most backward states when it comes to animal cruelty law and that progressive state legislators there were thwarted by Huckabee himself in several attempts to upgrade the state's vague anti-cruelty laws from a misdemeanor to a felony offense. Arkansas is now only one of seven states that consider deliberate, malicious acts to animals a misdemeanor offense. While 29 of those 43 felony cruelty laws (including Iowa's and New Hampshire's) have been passed in the last enlightened decade, says HSLF, "Huckabee and Arkansas did nothing. ... All that came from Huckabee during the ballot campaign was a deafening silence."

I agree with the Humane Society when it opines that "any indication of a family tolerance for malicious animal cruelty sets off alarm bells-- cruelty is a sign of an empathic disconnect and is often an indicator of broader violent tendencies." Eight months ago, David Huckabee was arrested for carrying a loaded .40-caliber Glock pistol through boarding security at the Little Rock airport. He paid a fine and said he forgot to remove it from his carry-on luggage. If you check the blogs on this sordid little subject of a dog-hanging, you'll find many scoffers who contend this won't hurt

Huckabee's chances at all, despite the newly powerful prominence of animal rights groups and their lobbyists and their take-to-the-streets demonstrating members. Oh really? I have two words for the Huckabee defenders: Michael Vick.