A Word to the Huck Haters

Parcbench ^ | December 1, 2009 | Kevin McCullough

[Silly]

Cop-Killer???

A little bit of light needs to be shed on a funny little thing called FACTS as it pertains to the issues surrounding the suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons. Shamefully prominent voices in the Conservative punditocracy (mostly ones who supported Romney in the last go-round) have come out attempting to link Gov. Mike Huckabee to the killings in Seattle that took the lives of four police officers.

Most of these spared little thought for the families, and jumped right into the band-wagon in denouncing Huck as soft on crime, and a friend to criminals, or a bleeding heart Christian. (Funny how the mainstream always accuses Christians of not having a heart.)

All that being said, these Conservative pundits are wrong on the material substance in linking the two and if they continue to do so it says more about their own character than that of the former Governor.

Yes Gov. Huckabee commuted a 100+ year sentence for a person who was a minor when he committed a series of burglaries. He commuted it all the way down to 40 years.

But let’s get some facts straight:

1. That commutation did not pardon, declare innocent or acquit Clemmons of his wrong doing.

2. Clemmons remained on parole following his commutation and when he violated that parole he was brought in for those crimes. (At this point in time, Huckabee’s involvement with Clemmons was over.)

3. It was prosecutorial malfeasance that THEN allowed Clemmons to walk free, NOT a Huckabee commutation.

4. Sometime after that incident Clemmons moves to Washington State, and by all signs possible, lives the life of a model citizen.

5. After that 5-6 year stretch of time Clemmons begins to have skirmishes with Washington State authorities.

6. In Washington State there is a 3 strike law. Which means that when accumulating serious offenses in that state, the third time will incur automatic sentencing that can not be altered.

7. The child-rape Clemmons was most recently charged with was considered his 3rd strike IN WASHINGTON.

[healy61]

Clemmons was sentenced to prison. Huckabee’s ink pen let him out. That is a fact that can not be negotiated away. 4 people are dead. Clemmons should have stayed in prison.

[muawiyah]

Billzo's price was too high for most of them. Still, do you recall when he was caught selling prisoner's blood to the Canadian national health service so don't try to use him as some sort of moral standard in any of this.

Regarding the "surrounding states, you have Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas ~ but not a one of them has done what we've done in Virginia which is to eliminate parole, and unless you've done that you're just turning loose tens of thousands of hardened and still very dangerous violent criminals every single year.

This particular guy got a commutation of sentence ~ down from 108 to 45 years. If the parole system had been abolished he'd still be in jail eh!

[StatenIsland]

Huck is finished, and wasn’t getting my primary vote anyway - unless he was the most Conservative candidate in it, which I doubt will be the case.

However, I try to put myself in the Governor’s shoes:

A minor commits a series of burglaries.
He is sentenced to ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT YEARS!
Should I commute his sentence down to 40+ years?

I think I would do that...I think most of us would react to those circumstances that way, because on its face it does not seem unreasonable.

[Tax-chick]

I also found the blame for Huckabee, in this situation, excessive. I don’t like him a candidate - open borders, nanny government - but fair is fair.

[MortMan]

I despise Huck as a politician, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Clemmons. My parents lived in Arkansas after the “Sun God” (Clinton) left Huck in charge. Huck is a nanny-stater (read: “social socialist”) who believes that morality somehow requires the transfer of tax money from payers to grifters.

I’m also quite aware that Huck was the foil used to elevate McCain in 2008.

The spin being presented on Clemmons is that nobody objected - but other people involved back then (on a much more intrinsic level) have disputed this.

Just my $.02, of course.

[SaraJohnson]

The worst part is, his rationale for over-riding the justice system as governor was based on pure left wing race bait. The Huckster endangered the public to please his racist Black minister pals for the diversity vote. There is no limit to the destruction a Rino politician will visit upon the public in order to get race based votes.

Yeah, poor Huck. He’s a victim of “hate.”

[Safrguns]

I originally bought in to the Huck flap that he had pardoned a murderer. Apparently, that is not true.

I heard his interview with Sean Hannity about this, and he didn’t sound like a man with something to hide to me.

It was very easy to believe the initial reports... probably because about the same time, we had Newtered GinGrinch recently endorsing an ultra liberal pro-abortion candidate for congress... I guess once you find one witch, its far too easy to find a coven of them.

Huckabee for president? hell no... but this jury is still out on the RINO charge.

[livius]

I’m not blaming Romney supporters for Clemmons, but they seem to be so obsessed with Huckabee that we’re completely forgetting about Clemmons and about a system that he has been able to play for virtually all of his life.

Huckabee commuted his sentence for something that Clemmons had done when he was 16 (supposedly, burglaries without violence), but I would suspect that Clemmons probably had a youth record before that. Unfortunately, that cannot be used in court and in fact is generally sealed. All throughout his years in the system, Clemmons has gotten away with things because the system is stacked in favor of the criminals, who are always regarded as poor misguided creatures who really would have been saints if The Man hadn’t kept them down.

[WaterBoard]

1. That commutation did not pardon, declare innocent or acquit Clemmons of his wrong doing.

You are 100% correct.

However, Gov Huckabee chose to free a man sentenced to 60 years in prison out in 11 years. He then went on to rape a child and kill 4 police officers and commit multiple felonies across the country.

None of this would have ever happened had the criminal not been released from his original prison sentence.

Rationalize it all you want, Huckabee has blood on his hands.

[muawiyah]

The RINO charge is based on the fact he was involved in adjustments to and increases in taxes in Arkansas that most New Yorkers and Californians would think to be a blessing from God Himself!

Others are still arguing that The Huck was used by the McCain campaign to detract from the Romney campaign by providing a socially Conservative alternative ~ as if Romney was ever socially conservative. Their primary ammunition in most of these threads has been that Romney never pardoned anyone (but they have parole in Massachusetts, which is, of course, the problem ~ parole turns hardened criminals loose in their prime of life when they are most dangerous).

[commish]

Those funny things called FACTS are actually quite important.

You are correct, and the only FACT THAT MATTERS is this : If Mike Huckabee does not do the ORIGINAL COMMUTATION of Clemmon's sentence, NONE of the subsequent actions would have occured. Clemmon's would still be rotting in an Arkansas jail and 4 Washington Policemen would be alive and with thier families.

THAT is the only FACT that matters.

Nice try to whitewash Huckabee's culpability, but the FACT is his action consequently led to 4 men losing thier life. PERIOD!

[muawiyah]

And when did he castrate the man?

I raise that question because you seem to be confounding this case with the Drumond case.

[spectre]

You are correct. There were too many people involved in this for Huckabee's spin machine to work. So he HAD to make this statement last night.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Former Arkansas Governor and Presidental Candidate Mike Huckabee spoke at the Annual Tippecanoe County Right to Life banquet in West Lafayette.

Huckabee has been under scrutiny after a man shot and killed four cops in a coffee shop in Seattle. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect, was facing a lifetime in prison in Arkansas when Huckabee was governor. Huckabee shortened Clemmons' sentence.

"Here was a kid at age 16 had committed a burgarly and a robbery and got a 108 year sentence," Huckabee said Tuesday night at the Right to Life annual banquet on Purdue's campus. "The judge thought it was unfair. The parole board did and recommended to me to commute his sentence. I didn't let him loose because I didn't have that power as a governor. I commutted his sentence to 47 years giving him the oppurtunity to be parole eligible."

TRANSLATION: THE FIX WAS IN.

Six days after posting bail in Washington on charges of child rape, Clemmons opened fire on four police officers. Huckabee says that isn't the same man he knew back in 2000.

"He wasn't a cop killer. He wasn't a rapist. He wasn't a violent criminal. He wasn't a fugitive from justice. He was a person at 16 did some dumb things and some criminal things. I don't know a single person that can look me in the eye and tell me that if they had that same file in front of them they wouldn't believe that maybe 47 years was a more appropriate sentence for what he did as a minor," Huckabee said.

Huckabee says that if he had to make that decision again today with the knowledge of what Clemmons was going to do, Huckabee would never have changed Clemmons' sentence.

"If I had the exact same information in front of me tonight that I did 9 years ago in a case exactly the same, I would make the exact same decision because I can't imagine anyone would not. If I could have looked into the future, of course I wouldn't have, but I couldn't do that," Huckabee said. "What I don't understand is those who could see his actions. The judges in Washington who knew he had raped a child and that he had now several psychotic episodes why he was able to get out on bail, that I can't answer."

There's a running thread on this now.

[muawiyah]

Jim Guy Tucker is the puke Bill Clinton left in charge of Arkansas, not Huckabee.

Jim went to jail and Bill should have.

I know it's difficult to keep all those Arkansas governors in mind when dealing with issues like this, but you really have to.

The Huck was elected and re-elected many times in Arkansas probably because he wasn't a crook.

[MortMan]

You are correct, sir (or madame, as the case may be). My memory is apparently extra deficient this morning.

Mea culpa.

[WaterBoard]

"He wasn't a cop killer. He wasn't a rapist. He wasn't a violent criminal. He wasn't a fugitive from justice. He was a person at 16 did some dumb things and some criminal things. I don't know a single person that can look me in the eye and tell me that if they had that same file in front of them they wouldn't believe that maybe 47 years was a more appropriate sentence for what he did as a minor," Huckabee said.

Based on Huckabee's statement last night. Gov. Huckabee is a degenerate liar or just plain stupid.

Here is Clemmons background prior to be sentenced in Arkansas. Clearly, the man was violent and dangerous.

In 1990, Clemmons, then 18, was sentenced in Arkansas to 60 years in prison for burglary and theft of property, according to a news account in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Newspaper stories describe a series of disturbing incidents involving Clemmons while he was being tried in Arkansas on various charges.

During one trial, Clemmons was shackled in leg irons and seated next to a uniformed officer. The presiding judge ordered the extra security because he felt Clemmons had threatened him, court records show.

Another time, Clemmons hid a hinge in his sock, and was accused of intending to use it as a weapon. Yet another time, Clemmons took a lock from a holding cell, and threw it toward the bailiff. He missed and instead hit Clemmons' mother, who had come to bring him street clothes, according to records and published reports.

On another occasion, Clemmons had reached for a guard's pistol during transport to the courtroom.

When Clemmons received the 60-year sentence, he was already serving 48 years on five felony convictions and facing up to 95 more years on charges of robbery, theft of property and possessing a handgun on school property. Records from Clemmons' sentencing described him as 5-foot-7 and 108 pounds. The crimes were committed when he was 17.

[sig226]

A word to those who want to replay the last election:

We LOST in 2008. It's time to move forward instead.

Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Palin, Hunter, Tancredo, and Thompson were the large parts of the loss.

LOOK AHEAD.

We've got two more years to plan, and then choose platforms and candidates before the next presidential election is serious.

[DTogo]

Huckabee should stay on TV and out of public office. No more Big Govt “compassionate Conservative” RINOs who pander to the Religious Right.

[spectre]

Awhh..and everyone knows that "kids" aren't sentenced to the Big house.

BTW, in 1998 Huckabee wrote "Kids Who Kill"...a book—full of unforgiving rhetoric.

Anyone read it?

sw

[CajunConservative]

This isn’t the only case though showing his poor judgment. Other felons he thought found Jesus got out and went on to rape and murder again. This case highlights the problem of the broken “justice” system.