Krauthammer's Error on the Mormon Question

Charles Krauthammer's latest opinion piece criticizes Mike Huckabee for trying to have it both ways. Huckabee, Krauthammer says, is exploiting the negative reaction a significant minority has about Mitt Romney's Mormonism while also trying to stay above the bigotry:

Huckabee has been asked about this view that Mormonism is a cult. He dodges and dances. “If I’m invited to be the president of a theological school, that’ll be a perfectly appropriate question,” he says, “but to be the president of the United States, I don’t know that that’s going to be the most important issue that I’ll be facing when I’m sworn in.”

Hmmm. So it is an issue, Huckabee avers. But not a very important one. And he’s not going to pronounce upon it. Nice straddle.

Now, Krauthammer does have a point in his piece about the Huck ad that pronounces him a "Christian leader." I'm not a big fan of that ad either. But Krauthammer is wrong to see Huckabee's answer as a "dodge" and a "straddle" to the question of whether Mormonism is a cult. The Arkansas governor's answer is exactly what Christians ought to think of the whole issue of a Mormon who's running for president. As believers, we consider the question of whether Mormonism is Christian as "perfectly appropriate," but as citizens voting for a president we should consider the question irrelevant. Voters are electing a "Commander-in-chief," not a "pastor in chief." I could vote for Romney, but he's not a Christian as defined by the Bible.