“Playing the Hitler card” is an infallible sign that a politician has run out of intelligent, substantive and plausible ways to criticize an opponent. This would be amusing (Mel Brooks made Hitler amusing), except “playing the Hitler card” is also an infallible sign that a politician has run out of amusing ways to criticize an opponent.

So goodbye to you, Mike Huckabee.

Claiming that the President of the United States “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven” is not a cogent critique of the Iran nuclear deal, however bad the deal is. Nor is it an insightful thing to say about the administration that made the bad deal.

And, Mike, it is not a Christian thing to say about Barack Obama.

I’m a Christian too. Maybe I’m not a hard-shell Baptist ordained minister dog-in-the-manger-at-Bethlehem Christian like you are. But I think you could use a refresher course in Christianity.

“Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council,” said our Lord. “Raca” and “council” are Aramaic for “playing the Hitler card” and “New Hampshire primary.”

And it’s not just your “march them to the oven” comment that makes me think you need a come-to-Jesus moment.

I believe the Bible is the word of God. And you believe in creationism. “God created man in his own image,” says Genesis.

Mike, look in the mirror. This is obviously God’s way of telling you to lay off the biblical literalism.

You’re a smart man. You graduated magna cum laude from Ouachia Baptist University. which has a “Department of Worship Arts.” So, Mike, you know about God. Do you think God is smarter than we are?

I’m a god to my dog. When I say to my dog, “It shall be an abomination unto you to run into the street chasing a squirrel,” what does my dog hear? “Squirrel!”

Maybe you should consult I Samuel, verses 1 through 4. “…the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David… Then Jonathan and David made a covenant… And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him…” And here you are trying to get in between them.

Mike, you’re against gay marriage and gay adoption. Once people get married and have kids they don’t have the energy for any kind of sex. And then, pollsters tell us, they become Republicans.

Having you trying to convince people to vote for the GOP is like having Mahatma Gandhi on U. S. Marine Corps recruiting posters.

You call for “civil disobedience” to halt gay marriage. And you compare this to the actions of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Mahatma and MLK would walk down the street in assless chaps at the Gay Pride parade before they’d join you in a sit-in.

And you don’t like immigrants coming to America and making money. When people come to America and make money, what do they become? Again, Republicans.

You want 10 million illegal immigrants to return to their countries of origin within 120 days. Otherwise they’ll be banned from coming to America, where they already are.

Lights on in your head, Mike.

You say displaying the Confederate battle flag is “not an issue” for a presidential candidate. Not an issue, if you don’t want any black person to ever vote Republican in this dimension of the universe. You’ll have Clarence Thomas putting up Bernie Sanders yard signs if you don’t stop talking smack.

Mike, my Republican friends would rather hoist the Jolly Roger than fly the rebel flag like a bunch of cement-head biker trash with Nazi face tattoos.

To what political party do you think Abraham Lincoln belonged? We won the Civil War.

And my Republican friends aren’t worried about LGBT rights or undocumented aliens. Who do you think decorates Republicans’ houses? The guys from the Moose Lodge? And who mows Republicans’ lawns? Lincoln Chafee?

You’re nuts, Mike. You were on John McCain’s short list for running mates and he picked Sarah Palin for her comparative sanity.

Furthermore, Mike, as a hard-shell Baptist, you are accused of tea-totaling until proven innocent. I don’t want any damn sweet tea in my stemware when you invite me to a State Dinner at the White House. And you may have to. I’m the only inside-the-beltway type who’d come.

Because you wrote a book called, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy. It’s a great title and—between saying Grace, the Glock I’m cleaning, and the bacon, sausage and scrapple—that’s pretty much what was on my breakfast table this morning.

“Marriage as an institution is not so much threatened by same-sex couples as it is by heterosexuals’ increasing indifference to it.” That’s you in your book. Maybe you should re-read GGG&G as well as the Bible.

Mike, you think God is involved in politics. Observe politics in America. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics down through history. Does it look like God is involved? No. That would be the “Other Fellow” who’s the political activist.

I suppose your candidacy won’t disappear immediately—not until the Holy Rolly Pollys, amen snorters, snake handlers and flat-earthers have met at their Iowa caucus tent revivals and born witness to your divinely inspired campaign.

Then, however, as is foretold in Revelation, you will look around at the field of other candidates and realize that “without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters” and go back to Fox News and AM talk radio.

But even there you aren’t the “In-the-beginning-there-was-the-Word” that you once were. Mike, national opinion is flowing so fast against your brand of conservatism that you look—even to God-fearing Republicans—like a man trying to row up Class 5 rapids on a standing paddleboard.

Yes, you have your base. There are the no-account redneck gospel-grinding, pulpit-hugging evangel-hicks who think that the answer to every question including “What to wear to the prom?” is found in Leviticus, Chapters 17 to 26, in English like God spoke to Moses.

But, as I said, it’s the “Other Fellow” who’s involved in politics. And he’s helping you reap what you’ve sown, which is, in the case of your ridiculing Obama, a bunch of dried up old “corn” stalks.

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.

— Malachi 4:1