ArcaMax

After watching the fuss Republican presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee made about Beyonce Knowles early this year, it has been amusing to watch him try to wriggle and squirm his way out of the Duggar family's scandal.

In his latest book, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist pastor got all judgy about the president and first lady allowing their teen daughters to be crazy in love with Grammy-award winning Beyonce and her rap star husband, Jay Z.

He even went so far as to accuse Jay Z of "crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object." That breathtakingly wrong accusation sounded downright bizarre coming from a man who has palled around and played bass guitar on his former Fox News TV show with heavy-metal rocker Ted Nugent, who is hardly known for gospel tunes.

Now Huck sounds maybe a tad hypocritical, too, with his remarkably forgiving reaction to the news that Josh Duggar, 27, of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting," resigned from the conservative Family Research Council -- and TLC suspended the show -- following his admission that, as a teen about a dozen years ago, he had committed "inexcusable" acts of molestation of some of his younger sisters.

The show's suspension is the biggest shock to the seemingly shockproof world of reality TV since TLC dropped another show, "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." The mother of that show's child star, it turned out, was dating a convicted child molester. That was too much reality, even for reality TV.

But the Duggar family's scandal grabs our attention for another reason. Since their show hit the airwaves in 2008, the Duggars have been actively wooed by conservative politicians and activists. Parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their nine girls and ten boys frequently talked about conservative Christian values of purity, modesty and how faith in God, not birth control, should determine the number of children they have.

The Duggars endorsed Rick Santorum for president in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2016. But following the recent allegations, Santorum said he was "sickened" and was praying for the girls. Huckabee took a softer tone:

"Josh's actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn't mean 'unforgivable,' " Huckabee wrote in a Facebook post. "He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story."

No purpose? Tell that to the late night comedians.

"You mean to tell me the family that goes around saying gay and trans people are pedophiles preying on America's young people actually has a pedophile that preyed on America's young people?," host Larry Wilmore of "The Nightly Show" wondered out loud. "I hate pedophiles, but I love irony."

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