Man granted clemency by Gov. Huckabee suspected of killing 4 cops in Washington

[Lunar]

It's important to remember that law-n-order issues were a LOT bigger in the late 80's and early 90's.  It could be more damaging to Palin that she supported TARP than this is to Huckabee as everyone is really OCD about the bailouts. 

However, I'm sure that this would end up in all kinds of nasty robocalls and campaign literature that would be truly damaging.   

[Lunar]

Why was his original sentence commuted?  Why were his other charges dropped?  I don't think large, violent, psychotic, poor African-American men receive that much soft treatment by our criminal justice system.

[Lunar]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/30/washington.police.shooting/

this answers a lot of my questions

[Lunar]

If folks don't see that granting clemency to a convicted killer who kills again absolutely destroys any chance that Huck ever had to win the nomination in 2012, then this forum is more out-to-lunch on politics than I already thought it was.

I think it probably kills any chances he had (to be honest, I've always thought people SEVERELY overestimated his odds of running in the first place so I glossed over the prognostic aspect of my post).  I just wished to draw differences between the current era, when people are more concerned about the economy, with the Willie Horton era.  

What's most damaging of all about this is its immediacy.  If this had happened twenty years ago, reporters would stop asking questions about it at some point.  I don't see how Huck could successfully launch his campaign in six months with this trailing behind him.

The visuals on this are just all bad for Huckabee in multiple ways.  One of the officers was a woman and they were innocent victims of an ambush not even killed in the line of fire.  Nine children were left behind.  Child-raping psychotic African-American guy thought he had a special connection with Obama of some sort...anyway, an opposing campaign would NOT have a hard time getting those Arkansas prosecutors, or even some of the victims' relatives, to cut an oppo ad.  And that's why Huckabee will not be President of the United States.  Game over (I agree with Sam).

[Lunar]

Indeed, I suspect there is slightly more to the story than the kid being 17 but that's probably most of the story.  I'm going to let this develop for a week, but it seems the absolute worst injustice was Washington for granting him his bail from "Jail Sucks Jail Bond" (paraphrasing, barely) for child rape considering his history of psychotic behavior and violent crime.

Not that the voters are logical or anything.

Not that any policy could stop ALL re-offenders

I'm not a law-and-order type and can't say for sure I'd have done something different than Huck in that situation.

[Lunar]

I would just like to state, FWIW, that I feel Huck was completely in the right and also that this incident has not lessened my reasonably high opinion of him one bit.

I agree and I want more Democrats to speak out about this instead of squealing with joy at Huckabee's misfortune (ok, you can squeal a bit).   100 years is too much for crimes committed by a 16-17 year old that don't involve rape or murder.


Oh and Pawlenty sticking his knife in Huckabee's corpse?  Wow, Pawlenty has sure become quite the hilarious tool, hasn't he?  He's making Mitt Romney's shallowness look like the deep blue sea.