Huckabee's comments on Bhutto assassination

Is Mike Huckabee ready for prime time?  Do we need another Republican president like George W Bush who, even when given time to prepare remarks, comes off like a doofus during an international crisis?

According to CBS News, Huckabee emerged from an airplane at Orlando, Florida ('to the strains of Van Halen's "Right Now"') and made the following comments regarding the Bhutto assassination:

( below the jump )

* He expressed "sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan."

* He said here in the US we vote "not with bullets but with ballots."

* In response to a question from a CBS reporter, about the security situation vis-a-vis Bhutto's travels in Pakistan, he said "I think today is not the best day to comment on what the Musharraf government should or shouldn’t have done."  He then responded to a question about US aid to Pakistan by saying, "We need a full accounting of that money."

* Finally, he slipped by saying "what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continuing in Pakistan."

These awkward comments by Huckabee raise several questions:

* Why "apologies for what has happened in Pakistan"?

* Re "not with bullets but with ballots" -- has he ever heard the names Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, George Wallace, Gerald R. Ford, or Ronald Reagan?  Unless Huckabee subscribes to the notion that bullets don't kill people, assassins kill people?

* Why is today not a day to question the security situation vis-a-vis Bhutto, but it is an appropriate day today to question US aid to Pakistan?

* Is he aware that martial law was not in effect in Pakistan since it was lifted some time ago?

Is Mike Huckabee ready for prime time?  Or do the Republican primary voters 'heart' Huckabee anyway?

CBS News story here.