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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's hopes for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination have been dealt a major blow by his 9-year-old decision to commute the sentence of Maurice Clemmons -- the man suspected of killing four police officers near Seattle early Sunday.Just in case you don't remember, it was Al Gore -- one of Dukakis' rivals for the 1988 Democratic nomination --who first raised the issue of the Willie Horton furlough.
"It will be extremely damaging," said Diana Banister, a Washington-based publicist for Republican causes and candidates. "His GOP primary rivals will use it to their advantage against him." . . .
"It will be the Republican version of the Willie Horton issue that GOP surrogates used against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in 1988," Ms. Banister said.
UPDATE: Allahpundit:
Kudos to Huck, I guess, for stopping short of calling his critics racist too.Give him time, Allah. Huck might yet go totally Johnsonoid. Jim Geraghty:
It takes a particular bravado for a man in Huckabee’s circumstances to contend that his critics are the ones who should hang their heads in shame.Meanwhile, Huck continues his blame-shifting campaign with a Human Events column:
I take full responsibility for my decision then.But he doesn't. Instead, he points the finger of blame at others. If Huckabee wants to "take full responsibility," all he has to do is shut up -- which he most certainly should do (cf., Healey's First Law On Holes).
Not sure about this one - I was listening to Huck's defense of the Clemmons commutation, and it sounded reasonable. 16-year old kid gets over 100 years for a burglary and robbery (no weapons), serves 11 years (?) of it, gets sentence commuted to 47 years and parole eligibility (which means he was out soon after). I guess if I was a teenage thug who burgled an empty house and then robbed someone, I'd think 11 years or so was sufficient punishment, and I'd wonder how the hell those crimes warrant a life sentence, effectively. Sounds like his more heinous crimes happened after the commutaion/parole, which sucks, but hindsight is 20-20.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I suspect Huck's real problem here is that this doesn;t seem like an isolated incident - he apprars to have been very ah, "zealous" in dispensing clemency, and I suppose it was simply a matter of simple statistics that a number of these cases have reared their heads to bite him. I
It does certainly look like Huckabee's chances at the GOP nomination just went in the crapper.
ReplyDeleteWith Gingrich somewhat sidelined for the moment as well due to the Scozzafava thing, that seems to leave the way open for a Palin or even Romney comeback (followed by a Mondale-like 2012 outcome).
Don't forget the rapist that Huckabee released who went on to murder and rape.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=154e1aad-fd18-4efd-8d80-b5dab8559419
Editor's note, Sept. 1, 2005: Wayne Dumond, convicted of rape in Arkansas and murder in Missouri, died of apparent natural causes in prison Tuesday.
The occasion prompts us to republish Murray Waas' prize-winning article for the Arkansas Times in 2002 about the extraordinary steps Gov. Mike Huckabee took to help win Dumond's freedom. He has since blamed others for Dumond's release to kill again, but his actions over many years demonstrated his support for Dumond and, ultimately, the instrumental role he played in the parole board's decision to free him.
Huck is toast, and not in a good way.
ReplyDeleteBut to blame him for the acts of Clemmons, after so many others let this clearly dangerous man get to where he got, and glossing over the plain fact that all Huck did was commute the sentence to 47 years (that is still quite a stiff sentence - 47 years) is at best disingenuine and borders on dishonest.
If the problem is that he was free with clemency, which was not the case with Clemmons, by the way, then let the attacks be about that.
But, when a man is attacked it is surely within his rights to show those attacks to be false without being further attacked for defending himself.
What are we a bunch of liberals ?!?!?!?!?!
He was probably done with this anyway, but I'm pretty sure the "lol, cut out the caffeine" letter is going to be the nail in the coffin.
ReplyDelete