The story of who, exactly, is advising Mike Huckabee on foreign policy isn't worth untangling (did he or didn't he talk to John Bolton? What about Richard Allen? Could Allen be too senile to remember a Huckabee convo?), other than to suggest that whoever is doing it ought to be shot. But the Bolton dust-up does fit into a larger storyline, one I heard from a couple of disgruntled state conservatives I talked to today: Huckabee sometimes, kinda, seems like a liar -- and in that child's way, where you just exaggerate something in some trivial, unnecessary manner and then get backed into increasingly incomprehensible elaborations. Here's Bolton, after Huckabee said at a campaign appearance that Bolton had advised him:
I’d be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven’t spoken with him yet.
Huckabee, a day later:
Well, I had an e-mail exchange with John Bolton, and he has agreed to be a part of the group. He has not endorsed me. he has not indicated he would be supporting my candidacy, but he is one of many people who would be willing to have conversations. And we did have that e-mail exchange.
Maybe Bolton doesn't consider email "speaking"? I don't know.
--Eve Fairbanks