There is one thing I find absolutely delicious about the otherwise suffocating 24 hour cable news beast. 

Politicians can be relentless in trying to fill the bottomless news hole with every last ounce of bloviation. But every minute they  spend on stage increases the chance that we will get a rare peak at the unexpected places his or her mind wanders when – heaven forbid – he or she momentarily sets the script aside. In a political world in which off-message spontaneity has become virtually extinct, we desperately need these moments to see what’s really inside.

I’ll never forget when Barack Obama was stunned by the second wave of Reverend Wright’s comments. Caught off guard, he uttered something almost never heard from a candidate for national office. He was hurt. Hurt. Later we got the more carefully crafted statement, but this brief moment of hurt revealed the extraordinary possibility that we may yet get a president willing to shatter political orthodoxy and — could it really happen? –admit to emotions.

But perhaps the mother of all unguarded moments in this election year came yesterday when Mike Huckabee lamely tried to be spontaneous and make a joke when his speech to the NRA was interrupted by some sort of loud noise.

I for one am perversely grateful that we now know what astounding stupidity was lurking just below the surface as Huckabee read from his canned script. I have heard dumb and I have heard dumber.

And this was monumental dumbness at its dumbest.