Tom’s Big Picture

In an interview with CBN recently, Huckabee claimed to have a theology degree:

“I’m as strong on terror as anybody. In fact I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamofascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well.”

This is a lie, it turns out. He was caught in the lie, but shrugged it off with the following:

“I have a bachelor of arts in religion and a minor in communications in my undergraduate work. And then I have 46 hours on a master’s degree at Southwestern Theology Seminary. So, my degree as a theological degree is at the college level and then 46 hours toward a masters — three years of study of New Testament Greek, and then the rest of it, all in Seminary was theological studies, but my degree was actually in religion.”

First of all, this may not sound like a lot to the press, but to anyone who actually knows anything about theological degrees, there’s a huge difference academically between a religion degree and a theology degree. Theology degrees are much more technical and difficult, particularly their emphasis on the academically rigorous requirements of learning two foreign languages, Greek and Hebrew, and possibly a third, Latin. Huckabee knew he was lying when he said this: an equivalent secular comparison would be a person with a bachelor’s in criminal justice claiming to have a law degree. It would be a lie and they would know it was a lie.

Secondly, what does it say about a man who wants to be President that he dropped out of seminary before even finishing his master’s? Given the near-ubiquity of Ph.D.’s among pastors, one does not get the impression that the seminaries are particularly selective in awarding them assuming someone is willing to put in the work. Could this explain Huckabee’s disdain for knowing the issues, lazily falling back on puppy dog eyes and a cutesy anecdote?

But since Huckabee suffers from an inferiority complex, he always has to “one-up” the other guy, whether that’s claiming to have degrees he doesn’t have or engaging in self-righteous rhetoric about his moral superiority on the immigration issue. This is a man who will not govern on principle, but based on what he thinks will make him liked.