HEY, IT BEATS BEING FRAGGED IN 2012

Conventional wisdom from The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza:

The news that Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will be the ambassador to China for President Barack Obama almost certainly forecloses the possibility that he will be a candidate for national office in 2012....

Really? I'd say that possibility was foreclosed a while ago. Huntsman doesn't seem stupid, and he had to know that no one is going to be the presidential nominee of the Pitchfork Party in the next election cycle who's spoken in favor of the Obama stimulus plan and who supports gay civil unions. He also knows the Pitchfork Party is the the Southern Jesus Party, which means the most fervent voters think his Mormon faith is an evil cult.

He knows the GOP nominee three years from now is going to make Barry Goldwater look like Olympia Snowe. Unlike Mitt Romney in the '08 primaries and John McCain in the '08 general, he clearly doesn't want to lick the far right's boots in the forlorn hope that his deviations from Correct Thinking will be forgiven. So he's clearly just biding his time and hoping his party will come to its senses by 2016 -- as, I suspect, he would have done even if Obama hadn't offered him this gig.