After a man granted clemency by Mike Huckabee nine years ago murdered four police officers in Seattle last month, many conservative blogs blamed the former Arkansas governor, and pundits were quick to declare his presidential aspirations kaput. But as we suspected, it seems the political implications of the controversy were blown out of proportion. According to Public Policy Polling, Huckabee's favorability rating is basically unchanged, and actually somewhat improved, since the incident. [Public Policy Polling via Political Wire]



Read more: Voters Didn’t Get the Memo About Blaming Mike Huckabee for Cop Killing -- Daily Intel http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/12/vo ... z0ZDFtKwSJ

Don't you think that most people tend to see through unfair and overly harsh criticism, such as Mike Huckabee has had to bear?

A little blame goes a long way, especially when someone truly wanted to give a young person another opportunity to go straight and make his life count. When attacks become too hateful and persistent, people tire of them and start to think the blamers are unreasonably ill-willed.

Most people still believe in personal responsibility, even people who don't practice it in their own lives very well, still believe it (hypocritically -go figure) about other people.

I think it comes down to whether people believe that Gov. Huckabee nine years ago had good reason to think that this man in the future would do the things he did in these recent days.

To the extent that they think that Mike Huckabee had no compelling reason to think that this man would turn out like this one day, is the extent that they hold Mr. Clemmons responsible for his own actions --and hold Gov. Huckabee harmless.

Bear in mind, its likely the people who are giving Mike Huckabee the benefit of the doubt are relatively well-informed people, and no doubt have digested the news in a fairly discerning manner.

Moreover, I think these same sophisticated people hold the authorities in more recent times more accountable than Mike Huckabee, simply because they let Mr. Clemmons slip through the system when he proved himself incapable of making good with his second chance.

IOW, as time marches on and Mr. Clemmons keeps repeat-offending, each legal authority in the chronology of events has an even greater responsibility than the one before. The only difference is, none of these other authorities in Arkansas, or Washington State, are potentially running for POTUS.

Voters who vote mostly on emotion may not be so forgiving during the heat of a campaign when Mike's opponents run the negative ads.

In that situation, Miike has videos from the various shows he's been on stating his facts and the different articles from world net daily and it would be easy to direct people to the website that has all this and more if he desires to. If these people really want to know the full truth, it would not be hard to find. It could work out to our favor as it seems to be now.

Yes, but unfortunately, the Clemmons situation is potentially toxic because it exists as part of a group. Otherwise, I believe it would not be a concern as far as 2012...

Just a reminder this is an open thread. Thanks for the consideration.

voter wrote:
Just a reminder this is an open thread. Thanks for the consideration.

Sure. And, this thing didn't happen in a corner.

Here is an excerpt from the end of the article which makes some important points I have not seen elsewhere. Sources are included in the original article.

Quote:
The figure of 1,030 pardons and clemencies is often used to paint a picture of Governor Huckabee letting someone out of jail every three days. However, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette indicates only 163 of these actions led to actual reduction of sentences. The rest were issued to people who had left prison and who needed a pardon or commutation to be eligible for a job.

Further, we’re only hearing complaints about re-offenses from a handful of these actions. If one looks at his whole record of reducing sentences, Huckabee was right 90% of the time. If one throws in the post-release pardons everyone includes in criticizing Huckabee, he was right 99% of the time.

We don’t judge leaders against each other solely on the basis of clemencies. If one examines the record of every politician, mistakes are going to jump out against everyone. What’s worse — to grant clemency to a robber that becomes a murder or to appoint a soft-on-crime judge who for years fails to mete out appropriate sentences? For example, Mitt Romney appointed a judge who released a convicted killer who moved to Washington and killed again.

It’s true that lives were tragically lost and that Huckabee’s clemency played a role. When one is involved at high levels in the great actions of life — be it politics, the police, military, or even religion — actions have consequences that usually include the loss of large sums of money or the tragic loss of life. Consider that 241 U.S. Marines were killed in Lebanon after Reagan sent them into that country. Whether it’s Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, show me any great executive leader, and I’ll show you a man who made a mistake that led to a loss of life.

One of my great errors when thinking about Huckabee in 2008 was looking for the perfect candidate. That candidate doesn’t exist. Every potential candidate for 2012 has made mistakes. For Huckabee, some of these clemencies were in error. For Romney, the words “Romneycare” and TARP come to mind. For Sarah Palin, it was championing a well-intentioned but poorly written ethics law that forced her resignation this year.


I really hope everyone will consider these points in their thinking regarding Huckabee and the clemency issue.