Rush's great theme, which he returns to daily, is the fundamentals of conservative philosophy. Huck could care less about philosophy. Huckabee is a tactical politician, not an ideological one. "Ideologue" is a word with a faintly disreputable odor, but in practice it means a politician guided by something other than narrow self-interest. Huckabee's schtick is to say "I'm one of you," you know, "the guy you worked with rather than the guy who laid you off." But when Huck tells conservatives he's one of us, Rush asks for the evidence. So far, Huck isn't giving us much—but with McCain as his competition, why should he?

Rather than sending books back, Huck's people ought to be reading them—if not Rush's and Hannity's books, then Hayek and Kirk and Mises and Buckley.