Mike Huckabee Plays it Straight on Fox News

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers.

As a presidential candidate, conservative Mike Huckabee always had a joke or a dig ready. But now, as host of Fox's Huckabee, he's playing it straight. And it's working. His angle: Stay calm, be respectful, and anybody will go on the air. "I've enjoyed having guests on the show who normally won't do Fox," says Huck. Guests like liberals Bill Maher, Richard Dreyfuss, and Oliver Stone. "My philosophy is I take the words 'guest' and 'host' very seriously. And to me, host implies a certain level of civility and hospitality, and if you have a guest you treat them as such and you would expect them to behave as such," says the Republican. "And if you do, you can have people with varied points of view." But TV's not his future. He's still looking at a 2012 presidential run and is traveling the world to polish his foreign-policy skills.