NY Times, 11.30 Mike Huckabee's Burden, Tim Egan

November 30, 2009
Mike Huckabee’s Burden
By TIMOTHY EGAN

SEATTLE – They were shot execution-style: four police officers starting a shift on Sunday morning at a coffee shop in a suburb of Tacoma. They were parents, each of them, community leaders, veteran officers.

Who to blame? The suspect, police say, is Maurice Clemmons, a man with a lengthy criminal record and a pattern of serious mental illness. As of this writing, he’s still on the loose.

Trying to explain how such a man could be on the streets, despite five felony convictions in Arkansas that should have kept him locked up for life, Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said, “Some people have to answer to that.”

At the top of that list is Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and current host at Fox News. Huckabee granted Clemmons early release nine years ago, against the objections of prosecutors and victims.

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press
If this case does not sink the presidential aspirations of Huckabee, a leading Republican candidate, it should. By the standards that Republicans launched almost 20 years ago, Huckabee will be Willie Hortonized. But this case also shows, as with an earlier episode in Arkansas, that Huckabee’s judgment is seriously flawed.

If Huckabee were a liberal and a Democrat, he would be a punching bag for right wing blowhards an example of clueless, soft-on-crime politicians at their worst. Fox News would be stalking him, as they have others responsible for letting criminals out early.

Instead, he’s been allowed to get away with issuing a passive, blame-shifting statement. In the release, issued Sunday night, Huckabee takes no personal responsibility for letting Clemmons out early. Instead, he cites “a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington.”

Yes, a series of failures, resulting in the worst act of violence against law enforcement in the history of this state – four officers gunned down in “a targeted, selective ambush,” in Detective Troyer’s words.

A series of failures: starting at the top, with Gov. Huckabee.

“This is the day I’ve been dreading for a long time,” Arkansas prosecutor Larry Jegley told the Seattle Times. Jegley had strenuously objected to Huckabee’s granting of clemency to Clemmons.

Clemmons was serving a 108-year sentence on at least five felony convictions. In moving to get him out early, Huckabee cited his youth – age 18 – of his first conviction. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, thought Clemmons deserved another chance. He felt the same way about Wayne Dumond, a convicted rapist whose cause had been taken up by a Christian broadcaster and friend of Huckabee’s.

After Dumond was released – Huckabee denied having a hand in it, though parole board members said otherwise – he was convicted of raping and murdering another woman.

In Washington state, Maurice Clemmons had been in jail on a warrant for rape of a child. He was released a week ago, after posting a bail bond. Relatives said he was deranged, and that he thought he was a messiah.

These failures reveal institutional and human flaws. Some are inevitable products of a strained system, with legal protections often at odds with community safety. But none stands out more than the intervention of Huckabee to put Clemmons back on the street.

Huckabee says this “horrible and tragic event” should not be politicized. But it is his party that has honed such attacks into a dark art. This is a prison of their making, and they wasted little time getting back to it, even when the offender is one of their own . Michelle Malkin’s Web site Monday showed a picture of Clemmons, with a tag line: “Huckabee’s Willie Horton II.”

Back in 1988, when it came to light that Willie Horton committed fresh crimes while out on a weekend furlough program backed by then-Gov. Mike Dukakis of Massachusetts, Republicans used it to help destroy Dukakis the presidential candidate. It may even have cost him the election.

“The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it,” said a gleeful Roger Ailes, then a media consultant to Republicans.

Ailes now runs Fox News. If they decide to hold the politician accountable for early release of a violent felon linked now to a death of four police officers, they know where to find him – in studio, as a Fox News host.

Dr. Alan Phillips response also in the NY Times 11.30

The words of Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley “This is the day I’ve been dreading for a long time” echo across the nation today in the deaths of four of our finest law enforcement officers, murdered near Seattle Washington. This terror should and could have been prevented with strong leadership.

I am disappointed and disgusted when those sworn to uphold the law are shown to be derelict in their duty and fail to protect the people. There was absolutely no rationale for commuting the sentence of Maurcie Clemmons for his criminal behavior and crimes. Sentenced to 60 years in prison on the strong recommendation of prosecutors his sentence was commuted by a sitting governor granting him clemency. Mike Huckabee has called this crime a “horrible tragic event.” In my opinion, it was more than a tragic event, it was a horrible ambush and murder of four policemen by someone who should still be confined in an Arkansas prison. Mike Huckabee also indicated that if Clemmons is found to be responsible, It will be “the result of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state”. I disagree strongly with Mike, there would have been no incidents in Washington state if the Arkansas governor had not granted clemency to a predator in the first place.

I had dismissed earlier rumors of the Governor’s past criminal justice leniencies as mere political jabs from the past. As a result of the deaths of these front line defenders of our freedoms, I am unimpressed with Huckabee’s comments. A matter this harmful and serious cannot be spun by an incompetent former public official. Frankly, the Governor failed miserably and as a result families that should be sharing a marvelous Christmas-Holiday season together will now embark on decades of grief. No book, television show, guitar solo, or public relations effort will remove the devastation wrought by this hardened criminal who should have been left imprisoned.

Mike my message to you, “You have failed to follow the most basic guarantee of the constitution, our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You should have been in this instance a protector of the security guaranteed to all Americans through leadership which defends the dispensation of criminal justice. Parole boards, appointed by officials, are most mindful of an executive’s preference, the chief executive cannot hide behind their actions espousing non involvement.

I am a Republican with many friends from both parties, I love my country and our people. Your precipitous action has violated much of the nation’s trust, you failed to protect the people. Mike, I will not vote for you as a candidate for higher office.”