From Mike Huckabee's Website (Theatre Ed. people don't want to miss this one)

Firstly, if you're wondering where I've been the past few weeks, let me remind you that we take our finals after Christmas, so mostly I've been elbow deep in books and laptops. Combine that with the holidays, traveling, and family illness, I haven't looked at my blog in a while.

Now though, as I sit listening to CNN's coverage of the Iowa Caucus, I begin to be intrigued by Mike Huckabee. If you know me, you know there's no way I would vote for him, but like a lot of people I met in the South, he seems like a nice gentleman that I could have coffee with and get some good stories from, despite some big political differences.

So I went on his website. I was drawn immediately to a section on "Education and the Arts". Finally, I thought, a Republican making sense. Many of us who are or have been arts educators know the No Child Left Behind Act is stifling creativity and imagination in favor of memorization and drilling via standardized tests. Apparently, Huckabee also wants the arts available to all children. But then he said this:

Music and the arts are not extraneous, extra-curricular, or expendable - I believe they are essential. I want to provide every child these "Weapons of Mass Instruction"

Seriously? Is the culture of war and violence so pervasive that he cannot communicate his thoughts about the arts (which by the way often serve to be anti-violent) without using a pun about WMDs?

Mr. Huckabee, I retract my coffee invitation.