Huckabee’s George Casey moment?
Paul K. writes:
Huckabee waited a whole day before playing the racial high ground. As reported at Politico:
Huckabee defended his choice to grant the Arkansas felon clemency by insisting that Clemmons original sentence went too far.
“If he were a white kid from an upper middle class family he would have gotten a lawyer and some counseling,” Huckabee said. “But because he was a young black kid he got 108 years.”
Presumably Huckabee considers people who object to his grant of clemency for Clemmons racists, much as in 2006 he declaredthat racism was fueling much of the anti-immigration feeling.
LA replies:
Gosh, I had forgotten about that 2006 VFR item in 2007 when Huckabee, under the influence of his campaign advisor James Pinkerton, began talking about immigration controls. If I had remembered in 2007 that in 2006 he had played the racism card against amnesty opponents, I never would have given the slightest credibility to his 180 switch to anti-amnesty (not that I gave it much). Anyone who plays the racism card like that has shown his gut level commitment, and those things don’t change.
However, to be fair, he did not accuse those who attack him for his grant of clemency of being racists. He accused them of a “disgusting” effort to score political points off him three years before the 2010 election. It’s a stupid statement. Is he accountable for his record as governor, or not?
Here is the story from Politico:
Mike Huckabee: Political attacks ‘disgusting’
By ANDY BARR | 12/1/09 4:10 PM EST
Under fire for commuting the sentence of suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Tuesday called some of the criticisms “disgusting” and suggested they were attempts to score political points.
“It really does show how sick our society has become that people are more concerned about a campaign three years from now than those grieving families in Washington,” Huckabee said during an interview on Joe Scarborough’s radio show. “It is disgusting, but people use anything as a political weapon.”
Huckabee granted Clemmons, a suspect in the killings of four police officers in Washington state over the weekend, clemency in 2001. He had served 11 years in prison after being sentenced at the age of 18 to 60 years in prison for burglary and theft and was set to serve the 60 years, in addition to the 48 years he was already serving on five felony counts.
After his sentence was commuted, Clemmons was paroled by an Arkansas board and moved to Washington in 2004, where he was charged with eight felonies prior to gunning down the police officers in a coffee shop.
Clemmons was shot and killed Tuesday morning by an officer investigating a stolen car.
Huckabee has been thrashed in the right-wing blogosphere by leading online conservative voices who have criticized his commutation of Clemmons’ sentence.
In addition, Minnesota GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty—one of Huckabee’s potential challengers for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012– said Tuesday that he would not have granted Clemmons clemency if he had been in Huckabee’s position.
“I don’t think I’ve ever voted for clemency,” Pawlenty told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. “We’ve given out pardons for things after everybody has served out their term, but again, usually for more minor offenses. But clemency? Certainly not. Commutation of sentence? Certainly not.
Huckabee defended his choice to grant the Arkansas felon clemency by insisting that Clemmons original sentence went too far.
“If he were a white kid from an upper middle class family he would have gotten a lawyer and some counseling,” Huckabee said. “But because he was a young black kid he got 108 years.”
Huckabee said the sentence was “far disproportionate from any other punishment in Arkansas at the time for a similar crime.”
“It’s a lot easier to be a pundit or a commentator or a blogger than to govern the state and have to make tough decisions,” he said. “People are talking about this from a political standpoint, but what they need to be asking is how did the system break down?”
[end of article]
Rick U. writes:
So, let me see if I have this right. Huckabee’s position is that Clemmons got a harsher sentence than a white kid. Ok—so let’s say he commutes the second half or third of the sentence to be “fair.” It would still mean that Clemens is in jail—right? What actually happened was that Clemmons served 10 percent of his time and Huckabee is trying to hide behind the parole board, the judge, the caseload, (he mentioned 1200 clemency cases per year on O’Reilly), while all the while he forgets the prosecutor’s recommendation.
Sorry, no pass for Huckabee! He is the one playing politics on this thing, and as you said yesterday he should be toast. He’s a liberal who got caught with his twisted ideology of granting mercy to a human animal. When are we going to stop this lunacy of using our communities as test-labs for these liberal do-gooders and Christian wannabees?
Those poor families … What a disgrace on a just society.
Jonathan W. writes:
Regarding Huckabee’s absurd comment that an “upper middle class white kid” would have been sentenced to counseling for numerous violent felonies, has anyone seen many, if any, cases of this? One would think that the media would broadcast these cases widely to highlight this alleged racial bias in the criminal justice system, just as they heavily cover the rare instance of whites violently assaulting non-whites. Huckabee’s asinine remark is tantamount to those made by blacks who claim they suffer from racism every day. When asked for specific examples, they never have any.
LA replies:
Regarding Jonathan’s last point, be sure to see Craig Bodeker’s A Conversation about Race, an hour long documentary available on Youtube.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 01, 2009 06:07 PM | Send