Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton?

[Bruce Gourley]

Turns out Mike Huckabee as governor of Arkansas had a prolific habit of pardoning criminals. One of his pardoned criminals was the man who days ago murdered four police officers in Washington state. And while fellow presidential contender Tim Pawlenty knocks Huckabee's free-wheeling clemency policy, Huckabee claims such criticisms are disgusting.

Is Huckabee's shot at the Republican presidential nomination over? If so, who benefits most? Palin?

[Stephen Fox]

Franklin Graham comes out the winner in all this

See the Palintologist link in the Double Wow Thread.

Huckabee should move to Alaska and run for Senate and Palin should run for the other one and Richard Land could be their co Chief of STaff; one for both Senators and save the taxpayer's money

[Chris]

I can't believe Huckabee could ever get elected to any office after this! The best thing the Dems can hope for in 2012 is a GOP ticket that is Palin-Sanford.

[Haruo]

Huckabee's behavior reminds one of Fidel Castro. This is the sort of thing that gave "Marielitos" a bad name.

[Mrs Haruo]

.....Meanwhile, Puget Sounders are being encouraged to display a blue light in their windows in support of the police and their families....... ......it will be a bittersweet Christmas around here. I have worked with law enforcement and used to live near the coffee house where the massacre happened. This is all just too close to home for me. Pray for those who had to witness the carnage. Pray for those who had to clean up the mess. Pray for the families left behind. Pray for the safety of those who put their lives on the line every day for your safety.

[Bruce Gourley]

Frank Schaeffer concludes that Huckabee's embracing of Dominionism lies behind his wholesale pardons policy as governor of Arkansas.

[William Thornton]

Do you know the difference between a 'pardon' and a 'commutation'?

Let Huckabee deal with whatever comes to him on this, but most historians have a thing about accuracy.

If the governor had been a Democrat, I suspect my mod/lib friends here would be commending him for granting some clemency to a prisoner whose crimes were committed at sixteen years of age and for which he received a 100 year sentence.

But, I do understand the mod/lib reflex here...

[Bruce Gourley]

Do you know the difference between a 'pardon' and a 'commutation'?

Let Huckabee deal with whatever comes to him on this, but most historians have a thing about accuracy.

If the governor had been a Democrat, I suspect my mod/lib friends here would be commending him for granting some clemency to a prisoner whose crimes were committed at sixteen years of age and for which he received a 100 year sentence.

But, I do understand the mod/lib reflex here...

Er, Republicans / conservatives are criticizing Huckabee, not the least because during his time as Arkansas governor he pardoned and commuted more criminals than all pardons and commutations in the states surrounding Arkansas collectively ... and more than all 3 of his predecessors combined.

[Chris]

It was her misfortune that Carla Faye Tucker didn't commit her crime in Arkansas rather than in Texas.

[Jonathan]

Let Huckabee deal with whatever comes to him on this, but most historians have a thing about accuracy.

Ohhhhh, snap!

[William Thornton]

Do you know the difference between a 'pardon' and a 'commutation'?

Let Huckabee deal with whatever comes to him on this, but most historians have a thing about accuracy.

If the governor had been a Democrat, I suspect my mod/lib friends here would be commending him for granting some clemency to a prisoner whose crimes were committed at sixteen years of age and for which he received a 100 year sentence.

But, I do understand the mod/lib reflex here...

Er, Republicans / conservatives are criticizing Huckabee, not the least because during his time as Arkansas governor he pardoned and commuted more criminals than all pardons and commutations in the states surrounding Arkansas collectively ... and more than all 3 of his predecessors combined.

You said that "One of his pardoned criminals was the man who days ago murdered four police officers in Washington state." That is an inaccurate statement.

[Dave Roberts]

I read this story as the son of a former law-enforcement officer. My heart goes out to the families and the fellow-officers who serve. I am not a death-penalty advocate, but I am an advocate of great care in the parole process, the pardoning of individuals, and the commutation of sentences. Some people do not rehabilitate well, others do. Releasing those with a violent past is quite different from releasing those convicted of property crimes and drug-related crimes. Were Huckabee not in a perpetual race for the White House, no one would have taken note. Likewise, had the crime not been of the heinous and brutal nature that it followed, we would probably also never have noticed. The release of violent felons should be near the bottom of the parole process. It's hard to resolve these issues, but the obvious error here seems to be evident.

[Bruce Gourley]

Do you know the difference between a 'pardon' and a 'commutation'?

Let Huckabee deal with whatever comes to him on this, but most historians have a thing about accuracy.

If the governor had been a Democrat, I suspect my mod/lib friends here would be commending him for granting some clemency to a prisoner whose crimes were committed at sixteen years of age and for which he received a 100 year sentence.

But, I do understand the mod/lib reflex here...

Er, Republicans / conservatives are criticizing Huckabee, not the least because during his time as Arkansas governor he pardoned and commuted more criminals than all pardons and commutations in the states surrounding Arkansas collectively ... and more than all 3 of his predecessors combined.

You said that "One of his pardoned criminals was the man who days ago murdered four police officers in Washington state." That is an inaccurate statement.

I stand corrected: Huckabee's clemency of Clemmons was a commutation, not a pardons (seems the early news stories, from which I got pardons, made the same mistake).

But I do gather you see no problem of Huckabee being a prolific releaser of criminals?

[William Thornton]

But I do gather you see no problem of Huckabee being a prolific releaser of criminals?

Not sure where you see that. I didn't vote for Huckabee in '08 and don't know that I will if he runs in '12 so this potential Willie Horton stuff hasn't had much attention from me.

But I'm waiting for the first honest mod/lib here to say that while hindsight is great, Huckabee did the right thing to commute the sentence of a prisoner whose crimes were committed as a teen and who received a 100 year sentence for them and for a parole board to evaluate the prisoner before releasing him. That sounds like something that ordinarily would have support around here. Go figure.

[Bruce Gourley]

Theocratic, fundamentalist organization RenewAmerica calls Huckabee a Social Gospel heretic.

[Jonathan]

...

[Jonathan]

I read this story as the son of a former law-enforcement officer. My heart goes out to the families and the fellow-officers who serve. I am not a death-penalty advocate, but I am an advocate of great care in the parole process, the pardoning of individuals, and the commutation of sentences. Some people do not rehabilitate well, others do. Releasing those with a violent past is quite different from releasing those convicted of property crimes and drug-related crimes. Were Huckabee not in a perpetual race for the White House, no one would have taken note. Likewise, had the crime not been of the heinous and brutal nature that it followed, we would probably also never have noticed. The release of violent felons should be near the bottom of the parole process. It's hard to resolve these issues, but the obvious error here seems to be evident.

No doubt, Huckabee was influenced by decades of mostly, well intentioned rhetoric by folks who have argued against capital sentences or long prison terms for violent crimes committed by folks at or just younger than 18...and he is right to have given an ear to these arguments.

The real story in this recent crime is not the political future of a pastor-turned politician-turn talk show host-turning politician again. The real story is the unintended consequences of releasing violent offenders (there are real families feeling real pain as a direct consequence of the release of a violent felon). I'm not arguing that Huckabee made the wrong call or that he made the call without a great deal of thought. But, the data consistently shows that folks convicted of a violent crime are more likely to commit another violent crime once released. A local radio station in my city has one of our public prosecutors on once a week and he provides the stats about how an overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by a very small minority of criminals. He recently quoted a stat, from survey in our state (data collected over decades) that the quickest way to reduce incidents of violent crime is to keep folks convicted of these crimes locked up for as long as possible (or put to death).

My guess is that the folks on the Left (Bruce, et al) who seem to want to criticize Huckabee for doing what politicians tend to do would not be in favor of increased mandatory minimums and/or a sped up path to executions.

But hey, while the families of 4 genuine American heroes in Tacoma begin to work their way through the shock and grief of the actions of a murderer, it sure is fun to make disingenuous political hay, right? (or left?).

[Randy]

I figured all you libs on here would love Huckabee for his pardons and commutations. But then, I imagine that most of you don't even believe in prisons.

[William Thornton]

I figured all you libs on here would love Huckabee for his pardons and commutations. But then, I imagine that most of you don't even believe in prisons.

Randy, I've been known to tweak our forum moderates and liberals before, such is not out of bounds here, but may I recommend that you make an effort to contribute to the discussion rather than merely slapping forum members who do contribute?

[Chris]

Theocratic, fundamentalist organization RenewAmerica calls Huckabee a Social Gospel heretic.

If Dunkin's definition of "social gospel" is correct, it sounds good to me. Kinda like what Jesus of Nazareth stood for.

[Sandy]

The biggest problem Huckabee has among the religious conservatives in the GOP is not his leniency with regard to commuting sentences and giving pardons, which, by the way, I support. It is the fact that he is not a corporate suck-up controlled by big money interests and has a tax proposal on the table that would require everyone to pay a fair proportion of their income in taxes. Since most big money interests either loophole out of paying taxes altogether, or have the means to lobby out of most of their obligation, the rank and file conservative Evangelicals would rather opt for a corrupt sell-out who would essentially go back to the Bush administration policy of robbing from the middle class to increase the wealth of the wealthiest, and who is a Mormon and doesn't share their spiritual values, than a former conservative Baptist minister who lines up with their social agenda perfectly. Beats me. Palin is still running a distant third to Romney and Huckabee in what are at this point somewhat premature and irrelevant polls.

The Barnes and Noble down the road from me had a pile of about 100 Sarah Palin books on the bargain table yesterday, at $2.99 each, I was almost tempted to get one until I found out that the public library now has several copies. You've got to figure that she's getting a lot of help from Democrats in her bid to capture the leadership of the GOP, since they realize how far her nomination would go to securing a second term for Obama.

This incident may be out there now for Huckabee, but I still think he's the best choice the GOP will have, especially if they are interested in getting back in the White House in 2012.

[Stephen Fox]

Sandy gets to the core of what is best about Huckabee.
He should be part of the discussion because he represents a lot of folks that are kin to us, go to church with us or used to, and Love this country deeply.
But he should not be President. Maybe a Congressman or Senator from ARkansas if they could balance him out with another Brooks Hays.

[georgefrink]

Theocratic, fundamentalist organization RenewAmerica calls Huckabee a Social Gospel heretic.

Interesting.
Frank Schaeffer calls Huckabee An Evangelical unfit for command. He rather clatters around terminology and doesn't document his case as well as I would like, but I think worth a look.

IMHO, it's more about nonpartisan irresponsibility.
If there is any other Southern governor in either party with a record reasonably comparable to Huckabees in abandonment of the public to palpably dangerous criminals, I'd like to know who it is.

[Chris]

If there is any other Southern governor in either party with a record reasonably comparable to Huckabees in abandonment of the public to palpably dangerous criminals, I'd like to know who it is.

Former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder granted clemency to Alan Iverson after he was sent to prison for instigating a bowling alley brawl while still in high school.

[Haruo]

Christine Gregoire, governor of Washington, made a big speech yesterday where she banned Arkansas parolees from coming here. Local commentator Ken Schram of KOMO TV/Radio takes her apart, with applause from the vast majority of those commenting, here. Just fyi...