Mike Huckabee (file photo circa 2005)

I’d missed this earlier, but Mike Huckabee’s new book “Do the Right Thing” hit number five on the New York Times best-seller list this week. Here’s the full list.

In other Huckabee news, the special guest tonight on his FOX News show is Ashley Smith, who persuaded an escaped prisoner to give himself up after a killing spree by talking to him about religion. Remember that? Remember? No? It happened back in 2005, if that helps. It was a really big deal at the time, I swear.

In other timely “Huckabee” news, he’ll feature an up-to-the-minute special segment tonight focusing on whether or not New Orleans is prepared to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. I’m on the edge of my seat!

Here’s Gov. Mike Huckabee sucking up to Iowa and New Hampshire voters explaining why it’s a good thing that Iowa and New Hampshire are the first in the nation primaries (or in the case of Iowa, caucuses) for presidential politics. The reason: Folks in the two early states are “seasoned political veterans” on account of all the time they’ve spent encountering candidates:

Every aspect of the argument here is absurd, of course. If there’s one thing I love about the fact that we’re three weeks past a presidential election, it’s that I know that for the next couple of years, I won’t have to listen to the wise pontification of those flinty New Hampshire voters, or watch clips of presidential hopefuls wandering around some random county fair in Iowa eating pork chops on a stick and shaking hands with those good salt of the earth Iowa voters. They just don’t want to move the early primaries somewhere else because if we did, no one one would ever have any reason to visit their stupid states. Don’t get me started on Iowa and New Hampshire.

Update: On the other hand, here’s good video from the same sitting with Huck calling the financial sector bail-out “the dumbest thing that Congress has done in a long time.” He notes that, had John McCain come out against the bail-out during the 2008 campaign, it might have changed the outcome of the election—or at the very least, would have “changed the dynamic.” Indeed.

And here he is talking about the coming Barack Obama administration: “My guess is that Barack Obama will more disappoint his supporters on the far left than he will enrage his critics on the far right.” He compares Obama to Bill Clinton, and suggests that Obama learned from Clinton’s early mistakes.

Got a robocall last night featuring the dulcet tones of one Mike Huckabee, who wants me to come to the Barnes and Noble in West Little Rock this evening at 6 p.m. so that he can sign my copy of his new book, “Do the Right Thing.” Problem is, I don’t have a copy of the book, and I refuse to pay full hardback prices, so I’m in a real quandary here. I wonder if I can steal one from the library.

Another option would be to show up with this book and ask him to sign it, but Huck probably wouldn’t find that as funny as I do. In fact, he might just leap across the table and lodge that pen in my windpipe, so maybe that’s not such a hot idea.

Update: The schedule says he’ll be in Fort Smith at the Books-a-Million at noon, for you Sebastian County Huckabistas.

Update to the Update: KFSM in Fort Smith offers a brief report on Huck’s appearance there. The indefatigable Jason Tolbert promises a report on his blog this evening from the Little Rock appearance.

Thursday update: Arkansas Project commenter DumbArkie provides a little video from the signing in the comments section, and Steve Harrelson offers a report from the Under the Dome blog. Harrelson notes that his legislative colleague Dan Greenberg was there. Now, Greenberg is supposedly an Arkansas Project contributor, according to this blog’s masthead, but failed to contribute a report on last night’s festivities. Hey, you know what I’m thankful for today? Not my blog contributors, that’s for sure. Harrumph, harrumph.