Good Bye, Mike

Put a fork in the former fat boy - Huckabee is toast.

Byron York has the more sympathetic piece on Huckabee's role in the parole of Wayne Dumond,

the convicted rapist who was freed under Huckabee’s administration, only to rape and kill a woman in neighboring Missouri.

Even presented sympathetically the story is ghastly - Wayne Dumond raped a seventeen year old cheerleader, then was assaulted and castrated while out on bail (although there is innuendo that the castration was self-inflicted.)

Conservatives railed against an injustice (the cheerleader was a distant Clinton cousin).  Huckabee promised to review the case with an eye to granting clemency upon becoming Governor.  His predecessor, Jim Guy Tucker, then commuted Dumond's sentence to a level where Dumond was eligible for parole.

After being pressured by Huckabee (or not - he denies it), the parole board freed Dumond.  He ended up in Missouri and raped and killed Carol Shields.

And that is the short and sympathetic version.  Murray Waas has the longer and more ghastly version (As an aside, regular readers here will recall Mr. Waas from his Plame days but it turns out he wrote an award-winning piece on the Dumond case back in 2002.)

To summarize the ghastly version - Wayne Dumond died in prison in 2005 and was never charged, but he was apparently the leading suspect in the rape/murder of Sara Andrasek, which took place roughly eleven months after the Carol Shields homicide.

And the Huckabee files, as supplemented by Mr. Waas' own investigative reporting, include pleas from other victims of Wayne Dumond.

I don;t see how Huckabee survives this story, which has begun to attract some attention as he has risen in the polls.  here is a month-old Arkansas editorial accusing him of running away from his own record, and here is yesterday's Kansas City Star:

Murdered women's mothers blame Huckabee for his part in killer's release
By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he is “heartbroken” over the pain suffered by the families of two women murdered in the Kansas City area more than six years ago.

Authorities say the two victims, Carol Shields and Sara Andrasek, were killed by the same man: Wayne DuMond, who was released from an Arkansas prison in 1999, a year before Shields’ murder.

Their mothers say Huckabee is responsible, at least in part, for the release of DuMond, who died in a Missouri prison in 2005.

“What a fool,” Lois Davidson, Shields’ mother, said of Huckabee. “Thinking he could rule the country when he couldn’t even do a good job as governor of Arkansas.”

Eventually someone will ask Mike Dukakis for his reaction.

PILING ON:  Or, if old clemency cases don't suit your fancy, how about the news that Huckabee is not up to speed on the latest National Intelligence estimate?

Somebody make him secretary of Health and Human Services so we can all lose weight.

MORE:  RedState has a transcript of Huckabee's statement, which adds little.

Hot Air shows a bit of Christian compassion (a bit) and seems to be thinking that if Huckabee was filling the space meant for Thompson and now Huckabee is soon-to-be-gone, what about Fred?

And in a follow, Hot Air gets a response from the Huckabee people on the Waas letters:

Update: In response to my wondering why Huckabee would go to bat after having received these letters, Joe Carter, Huck’s director of research, e-mails:

First, the authenticity of the letters is questionable. All documents that are put into the Governor’s files are stamped with a time and date. These do not have that stamp.

Second, the idea that Dumond was railroaded was a live topic in AR for many years. The biggest paper in the state made the claim repeatedly (see attached editorial) and some key evidence was dismissed. After personally talking with the rape victim, Ashley Stevens, Governor Huckabee had not lingering doubts about Dumond’s guilt. However, Dumond had been castrated and had already served twice as long for the crime as is typical for the state. That is why the parole board did not find his release objectionable.

The letters are phony, maybe?  Geez, that will squash this story.  Unless every reporter in America heads to Arkansas to attempt to verify them, and provides hourly updates on their progress.

Jim Geraghty has lots at the Campaign Spot - apparently one of these letters is in fact old news, and the Lexis/Nexis sleuths from rival Republican camps are delivering faux info.

The Ace of Spades delivers a full blast against the Huckabee candidacy - I will steal only his bullets:

Let's see how Huckabee shapes up:

Soft on crime...

Tax-and-spender...

Soft on the War on Terror...

Soft on Immigration...

But Glenn airs a good point from Dave Weigel - the press loves Huck because he is funny, accessible, and a lib.

Fine, let him run as a Dem and we'll see how much they love him.

Comments

[vinman_from_wikistan.com]

Mike, we hardly knew ye.

[Bill in AZ]

Mikey was only being blown by the MSM headwind because he's unelectable and they're scared of everyone else. Too bad this was "uncovered" so soon (maybe even by conservatives?). Whatever will the MSM do now?

[GMax]

Maybe we can get Huck to put on the tank commander helmet and give the tractor a spin in the yard?

[MayBee]

I like Mike Huckabee when he's just the entertaining guy at debates & interviews.

Why did Jim Guy Tucker (Dem) decrease the sentence?
And TM, did you see the props Murray gave you at Huffpo (sidebar)?

[clarice]

Except for the squishy Christian cover for liberalism, I think the story is less compelling a case against Huckabee. I just drafted an article on him, and there's plenty worse to concentrate on:His smarmy insinuations as "The Christian candidate for President" that Romney is unqualified, his lies about his tax and immigration record, and most signficantly his Carteresque blather of foreign affairs and utter lack of knowledge on defense and foreign affairs.
I;d be delighted if people dropped this flavor of the month--who I consider to have the worst characteristics of two other southern governors (Carter and Clinton) in favor of the real thing:Thompson.

[TM]

And TM, did you see the props Murray gave you at Huffpo (sidebar)?

I did see that, thanks, and was quite touched.

[Neo]

It's always interesting to see just how it is possible to rehabilitate Willie Horton.

Take all those "defense of Mike D." pieces out of the closet.

I think every former governor will have plenty of these "horror" stories. Didn't Clinton have one about executing a mentally lesser ? Wonder what experience Hiliary got from that ?

[Porchlight]

I agree with Clarice - I don't find the Dumond story to be the most compelling case against Huckabee. There are many better cases to be made. But I'm practical - if it helps chip his name off the nomination slate, I'll take it.

[MayBee]

First, the authenticity of the letters is questionable. All documents that are put into the Governor’s files are stamped with a time and date. These do not have that stamp.

The names are wrong and the dates are wrong!

[Neo]

The names are wrong and the dates are wrong!

Joe Wilson .. call your office.

[MayBee]

Wait! Did you read this (from the editorial):

Lt. Gov. Tucker, acting as governor while Clinton was out of state campaigning for president, commuted Dumond’s sentence to a level where he would be eligible for parole.

Why?
Did Clinton ask him to do this?
I know Arkansas has a weird history with pardons while the governor is out of state, but this was while Bill was campaigning .

[GMax]

For me, we have already had an overquota of Presidents who hailed from Arkansas for a whole lifetime. Sorry Huck, but you got in the wrong line. Arkansas could use a Republican in the Senate, why not direct your attentions there?

[GMax]

For me, we have already had an overquota of Presidents who hailed from Arkansas for a whole lifetime. Sorry Huck, but you got in the wrong line. Arkansas could use a Republican in the Senate, why not direct your attentions there?

[syn]

With the exception of the radicalized Jihadists within the religious institution of Islam, I can't tell what any of the other religious institutions actually believe so at this point I am skeptical of anyone who has a need to place their religious membership/affiliation as a means of establishing character reference.

That said, Evangelical Huckabee reminds me of Southren Baptist Jimmy Carter yet neither some to follow God's words. Oh sure they spout the Bible however, for some odd reason I think they use God's words to get believer to follow them and not God.

So far what I like about Thompson is that he isn't trying to play God to get the institutionalised religious vote.

The religious instititons need to get their own houses in order before they can use their affiliations as character references.

[Jaded]

You know what kills me about this story is his stupidity that because this sick bi**h was "castrated" that he could be placed back in society.

I am going to go out on a limb and say the Governer must not realize that rape is not about the sex it is about the power something he now wants for himself.

I am starting to think he is one of those liberals who believe that rapists and child molesters can be "fixed" and placed back in society like every liberal judge in MA. I think we all know that those stories end up just like this one.

[centralcal]

Busy at work, but . . .

I agree with Clarice.
And, amen Porchlight.

Please, Lord . . . bye bye Mikey.

[Sara]

I have said from the beginning that Huckabee is a nice guy but way too touchy feely to be President/Commander-in-Chief.

_________________________________

And here is another recommendation to fill your Christmas stockings:

The Inside Story Of The SwiftBoaters Finally Told

Bruce Kessler says:

This is the most important book you’ll buy this year: To Set The Record Straight, How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry, by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler, with Forward by John O’Neill.

...

Not only will you learn the inside details of the only book – Unfit For Command—that ever decided a presidential election but, especially for those who have any doubts, you will learn about how the peoples’ democracy can still work in the United States.

For those inclined toward political science, the book is an important contribution to understanding how political mobilization actually works and to seeing how the major media lost its Delphic grip on America’s political fate to the remarkably democratic new media of the Internet. Vietnam veterans took it away.

...

The 389-page book is very well-written and documented, based on virtually every public source and on extensive exclusive interviews with all those involved. Footnotes abound, and there’s an excellent index.

This is not a partisan diatribe, though of definite views, but an invaluable basic resource to anyone regardless of their politics. It’s all true, and the truths – the depths to which the Kerry-aligned media stooped to try to squelch the Swiftees – are all here, and truly shocking when all pulled together in one place.

...

For the past two years, Swett and co-author former Marine Captain Tim Ziegler, have labored to produce this book. Some other, better known writers wanted to tackle the subject and approached various publishers. Once the 2004 election was settled, major publishers weren’t interested in documenting the Vietnam veterans revolt as key to a watershed election upset, nor in further distressing the liberal narrative of being treated poorly. (See this post about how substantiated the Swiftee’s charges were, compared to the repeated MSM use of the term “unsubstantiated.” ) I’ve witnessed these disappointments and the persistence of Swett and Ziegler to tell the story.

...

This book is an extraordinarily comprehensive, documented telling of the Kerry-aligned media’s losing efforts to squelch the Swiftees (as a Kerry campaign insider said, “The senior staff believes the media is committed to seeing us win this thing…” ) and how they were foiled (Kerry partisan Susan Estrich admitted “they’re shell-shocked” at the implosion of Kerry’s mythical self-glorification).

Moreover, this book is an important tale of personal and political heroism, a tale that bears remembering and passing on by anyone who cares for the US and for peoples democracy.

For those who depended upon the MSM-Kerry narrative, there is a big surprise: There was no vast right wing conspiracy, nor was there a Rovian one. Those who need to believe there was such a conspiracy need to believe that in order to avoid the truth.

...

I hope that To Set The Record Straight sells as well. You can get your copy direct from the authors at their website. www.ToSetTheRecordStraight.com. (It won’t be up at Amazon for a few months, so the authors don’t have to prematurely split their needed earnings from two-years’ work.) There, you can also preview the contents, view excerpts and sources, and more.

[clarice]

Still no updates on the Kerry-Pickens bet, Sara.

[Sara]

Nothing I've heard so far, Clarice.

[The Ace]

I stumbled upon this earlier

Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley on Thursday asked Gov. Mike Huckabee to stop granting clemencies for violent criminals because of the unprecedented number of early prisoner releases during the governor's eight years in office.

Jegley said Huckabee has granted 669 clemencies since he became governor in 1996. The previous three governors, Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker, granted a total of 507 clemencies during their 18 years in office, Jegley said.

"In eight years the governor has granted 31 percent more (clemencies) than the previous three governors did in 18 years in office," Jegley said.

[Regina Srout]

Mike Huckabee. The Socialist From Arkansas. http://www.cofcc.org/?p=811

Mike Huckabee disses Americans, Mexicans, promotes illegal immigration
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/005609.html

Christians Need To Beware Of Mike Huckabee
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071102.html

While Gov. of Arkansas, Huckabee was AGAINST proving citizenship in order to register to vote. He called those who were in favor of this “racists”...
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050218/news_lz1e18perkins.html

Huckabee fought hard to kill an Arkansas bill which would have cut off social services for illegal aliens. Huckabee called the bill, “anti-Christian” and “un-American”...
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/01/28/News/316347.html

Huckabee supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens...
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/03/11/News/318458.html

Huck’s opposition to the illegal aliens bill:
http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/000718.html

[clarice]

His record on immigration is dreadful. Again he clothed his leftish sympathies ina a Christian cloak--making it a moreal, not a political issue--and therefore not a debatable matter.

[centralcal]

Here is an antidote to Hucabee fever.

And, every bit as humorous as the Huckster!

The link is in my url.

[clarice]

**moral**issue

[clarice]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/12/huckabee_house_built_on_a_weak.html>Huck

[Elliott]

It will be nice when we can say, with full credit to Peter Hannaford, "Goodbye, Mr. SCHIPS."

Of course, in keeping with the Calypso theme Clarice has introduced, we might also have "The Mike H. Farewell":

Cut way back on the calories

while I served my terms down in Little Rock.

Made a pitch in support of SCHIP

and when we reached New Hampshire, they cleaned my clock.

[Elliott]

If Huckabee implodes the way many of us expect and/or hope he will, where do his supporters go? If they go to one candidate en masse—I'd guess Romney or Thompson, but I don't have any polling to support that view—that candidate would win the expectations game in Iowa and probably in New Hampshire as well.

Romney can really help himself with his speech today. Hopefully Thompson's campaign has something up it's sleeve. I had despaired of Thompson in mid-October, but now am daring to hope again.

Thanks for the link to the ad by the Thompson supporters, centralcal. I'd love a parody of the "Gladiator" trailer, focusing on Thompson's position on immigration:

The lawyer who took to the stage.

The actor, who became a Senator commentatorPresidential candidate.

The candidate who defied the Chimperor!

[kim]

Here's the dilimma. Any office seeker with administrative or executive experience is subject to criticism for mistakes, and to err is human. Any office seeker without any such experience is unable to build an industrial strength campaign organization. So the pick is between the guilty and the incompetent, and in this model the incompetent are winnowed. Huck should be forgiven Dumond, but maybe not everything.
===================

[centralcal]

Very good piece at AT, Clarice!

[clarice]

Thnx.

[hit and run]

Elliott:
If Huckabee implodes the way many of us expect and/or hope he will, where do his supporters go? If they go to one candidate en masse—I'd guess Romney or Thompson, but I don't have any polling to support that view

Look at Rasmussen's numbers.

On 11/18, you had Giuliani 27 and Huck 10. Then yesterday, Huck 20 and Giuliani 17.

A flip of 10 points between the two. Huck up 10 and Rudy down 10. McCain, Mitt and Fred all moved no more 2-3 points during that time.

Huck has been peeling Rudy voters. I suspect we're talking about the social cons who have been holding their nose for Rudy, feeling Rudy was the candidate for the wars. Wars, plural? Well, yes, the war in Iraq/against Islamofascist (I say same war, different fronts); and the war against Hillary.

Iraq is going so well, that not only are the media covering it and the Dems covering their a$$es (reid notwithstanding), it's going so well that some voters are putting it lower on their list of priorities.

Those social cons then move to the pure social con in the race.

Now, that is also because Huck is the least vetted candidate, and the easiest pick for a social con -- a Baptist preacher.

The knives are out and he likely won't survive.

And, well, so, fine, I really say all that to say that I agree with you -- these voters end up with Mitt or Fred....not back to Rudy.

I'm way behind. Haven't seen anything but a headline yet on Mitt's "The Speech". This is a big moment in the race....

I DO NOT Question The Timing.

[Elliott]

hit and run,

Thanks for the data and perspicacious analysis. I think you make a very good point suggesting that the improving situation in Iraq could be making conservative voters more comfortable with a candidate who has little foreign policy experience.

I started wondering why we both think that Huckabee supporters won't switch to Rudy, even if they initially supported him. I've determined I'm proceeding on the theory that once voters cast aside the electability concern, i.e., by switching from Rudy to Huckabee, they aren't likely to be concerned with it thereafter.

[Anthony Look]

The issue is not even about the tragic Dumond case. The issue is that Americans experienced looking into the eyes and soul of yet another GOP liar. He is toast, because his real lying self became evident; and Americans have enough liars on top to contend with.

[Shelley Belsky]

Good-bye Mr. Scudder.

[kim]

Hello, Mike.
=======

[battery]

Hello, Mike.

[sophy]

I will thank for my friends bringing me in this world. I am not regret to buy Cheap metin2 gold .