Mike Huckabee’s Willie Horton Moment

From ABC’s The Blotter:

A Missouri mother says she will do “whatever it takes” to stop former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from becoming president, because he freed the man who went on to rape and murder her daughter, Carol Sue Shields.

“I can’t imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country,” Lois Davidson of Adrian, Mo., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Dumond was initially sentenced to life plus 25 years for raping a 17-year-old Arkansas high school cheerleader. In 1999, a parole board voted to free Dumond, after then-Gov. Mike Huckabee announced his desire to see him released.

Look, Gang… Huckabee may be doing well out in Iowa, but this stuff is NOT going to play well in New Hampshire, once it takes hold.  And lest we forget, Huckabee’s already in trouble up there. They remember very well up there, Willie Horton. For those of you who don’t recall the ’88 election….

” … After stabbing a defenseless gas station attendant 19 times during a robbery, Willie Horton was arrested and sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. Eleven years later, Horton was given a ‘weekend pass” from prison and his unexpected freedom resulted in another sadistic rampage. ” -From the jacket of “Willie Horton: True Crime and Its Influence on a Presidential Election” by Massachusetts-based author Steve Takesian

But let’s recall further… Wikipedia:

On June 6, 1986, he was released as part of a weekend furlough program but did not return. On April 3, 1987 in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Horton twice raped a local woman after pistol-whipping, knifing, binding, and gagging her fiancé. He then stole the car belonging to the man he had assaulted, but was later captured by police after a chase. On October 20, Horton was sentenced in Maryland to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years.

That weekend pass was provided him by a program supported by then Governor Mike Dukakis.

Now, to understand the depth of that situation, one needs to understand how deeply the anger at Dukakis was felt in New England… and remains to this day, for his support of this program. A goodly amount of his support, even among staunch Democrats went to Bush in 88, as a direct result of that situation. This is not just a situation of the perception of his being weak on crime, but being just downright STUPID. (Granted there were other indications of his lack, such as this photo op)

Now… after that lesson, I’d not have thought to find anyone else being anywhere near such an incident. Yet, along comes Huckabee, who recently told CNN,

“None of us could’ve predicted what Dumond could’ve done when he got out.”

Really, Mike?  How disconnected must you be to NOT understand that eventually, there’s going to be violent deaths occurring because of these kinds of programs, particularly given the experience of Dukakis, ten years earlier?

If you’re really that dense, the nation doesn’t deserve you walking around unsupervised, much less you being president.

See also, Memeorandum who has discussion and more links on the subject.

Update: (Bit)

NRO’s Byron York takes this one up… and the added details make Huckabee a troubling candidate.

Nice to know Michelle’s reading Bitsblog.

Anyone who thinks I’ve spent the last 40 years of my life learning how to properly apply makeup and avoid bad-hair days, only to end up donning that hideous black thing at the command of some foreign guy with a severe case of Male-Chauvinist-Pig syndrome, is in for a fight

Kyle-Anne Shiver  American Thinker.

MOSUL AIRPORT REOPENS FOR COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS AFTER 14 YEARS; RELIGIOUS PILGRIMS BOARD IRAQI AIRPLANE FOR HAJJ

Posted: 04 Dec 2007 06:13 AM CST

MOSUL AIRPORT REOPENS FOR COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS AFTER 14 YEARS; RELIGIOUS PILGRIMS BOARD IRAQI AIRPLANE FOR HAJJ

AFGHAN DOCTOR, COALITION FORCES SAVE AFGHAN BABY

Posted: 04 Dec 2007 06:10 AM CST

AFGHAN DOCTOR, COALITION FORCES SAVE AFGHAN BABY

UPDATE: COALITION FORCES POSITIVELY IDENTIFY TERRORIST KILLED IN RECENT RAID

Posted: 04 Dec 2007 06:07 AM CST

UPDATE: COALITION FORCES POSITIVELY IDENTIFY TERRORIST KILLED IN RECENT RAID

COALITION FORCES TARGET AN AL-QAEDA FACILITATOR; ONE DETAINED

Posted: 04 Dec 2007 06:04 AM CST

COALITION FORCES TARGET AN AL-QAEDA FACILITATOR; ONE DETAINED

I couldn’t resist this one:

This one’s from Fark. There’s more, there, too.

Paul Mirengoff, Powerline, chides Mike Huckabee for foolishly comparing himself to Ronald Reagan.   Paul suggests a far better analogy:

When it comes to foreign policy, Huckabee more closely resembles another former governor, Jimmy Carter. It was Carter, not Reagan, who viewed foreign policy as an extension of his own character and personal principles. Carter stood for a foreign policy “as decent as the American people.” Reagan stood for defeating our enemies. When Huckabee frets about how Gitmo is making us appear to foreigners, when he asserts that “we broke Iraq,” and when he says he’s qualified to be commander-in-chief because of his character rather than because of his understanding of our enemies, it’s pretty clear that his foreign policy roots extend nowhere near the fertile soil of Reaganism.

Jimmy Carter put his personal vanity ahead of America’s self-interest.  Like Carter, Huckabee lacks the personal fortitude to do what right for his country rather than what will sate his conscience.   Carter wasn’t up to being President, and neither is Huckabee.

I’m often asked why I railfan. Someone wrote and asked me that today.

It”s really a family activity.  I wrote to this point about 5 years ago… while sitting just west of my office here… in a little burg called Churchville.

As luck would have it, this is, then as now, one of the busiest rail corridors in the country… the old New York Central Water Route. Today, this line is run by CSX transportation, and still moves around 70 trains per day, and Amtrak moves 5 to 10, depending on what day it is. Power sets of 6,000 to 10,000 horsepower are common, these days. It’s a big and colorful parade, a display of power unmatched anywhere. It’s free, except for the small amount of fuel needed to get here. Often during the summer we’ll take some camp chairs to this spot, and a cooler, both of which are always in the truck, anyway due to our other family vice… RV camping.

There’s history trackside, as well… and a springboard for educational discussions with the boys. For example, in 1865, this very roadbed, was the route of funeral train of our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

The train is pictured here as it is leaving nearby Buffalo. This place I’m sitting in, now called Churchville, wasn’t even a town, yet. But the track was here.

A few years later, just west of here, about 20 miles or so, the fastest machine on earth in May of 1893, the old NYC 999, and it’s engineer Charlie Hogan set it’s record speed of 112.5 mph, while pulling the Empire State Express.

Hogan averaged over 100MPH for around 5 miles, on a slight downgrade. Apparently, Hogan just “wanted to see what it would do”, so once he got west out of Batavia station, he let the valve all the way out, and hung on, across the flats to Buffalo. Listening closely, I can almost hear its whistle.

Old 999 is still around today. It’s currently at the Museum of Science and Industry. The drive wheels you see mounted on 999 here, are 78inch wheels. The record run was done with larger 86in wheels. This would be like adding an overdrive to your car, more or less. One imagines the larger ones were removed so as to remove the high speed temptations from this already long- legged power.

Later, the 20th Century Limited blasted through here, at an only slightly more sedate 80mph as a matter of routine behind sleek, streamlined silver and black Hudson types, like this one, a J3a designed by Henry Dreyfus.

Those same engines pulled troop trains during both world wars. Out the windows of those trains was all too often the last glimpse of home many that fought in those wars, had. One cannot be anywhere along this main line without feeling at least some small sense of history…. A history I am taking pains to ensure my sons know about.

There certainly is that aspect to all this… I mean, History, and how to impart it. I mean consider the points I made incidental to the death of Billy’s Uncle, and you’ll see what I mean. I fear we as a society have lost far too much of our own history. An understanding of that history is something I want my two boys to have.

So, the kids like to watch trains. And they like to dream of one day driving the firebreathing monsters they’ve become so accustomed to. And that’s fine. Dreams, after all, are what futures are made of, even if you don’t get the dream you were after… the trick is to learn HOW to dream and then move in that direction. That, too, is an important lesson.

But I make sure to use the opportunity to teach them as we go.  My older boy has learned photography, has started to work with higher quality audio in a big way, has learned about radio recevers and transmitters, learned practical math by planning a several hundred mile trip down to the last dollar, has picked up modeling skills learning to work with paint and plastic, electricity, and basic drawing, learned to make friends… and alas, learned to say goodbye…(sigh… Maybe I’ll talk about that later) …all because of his love of railfanning.  The younger one isn’t far behind. Aside from all the history I’ve been hitting them with, of course.

But you know, there’s something that’s equally important to all of that… Indeed, there are times when it’s the most important lesson of all…. just being together.

WaPo:

The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan formally indicted one-time Hillary Clinton fundraiser Norman Hsu today, laying out what prosecutors described as a “massive fraud scheme” that allegedly left investors in Hsu’s fictitious clothing businesses taken to the tune of $20 million.

The indictment charges Hsu with six counts of mail fraud, six counts of wire fraud, and three counts of violating the Federal Election Campaign Act for allegedly squeezing contributions out of his investors, and in some cases, repaying donors who wrote checks to Hsu’s chosen political candidates.

Hsu remains in a California jail on separate fraud charges there, but prosecutors in New York said they expect Hsu to be transferred there “in coming weeks.”

It will be interesting, I think, to see how this one plays out, vis a vie’ Hillary Clinton. A lot of this depends on who is this prosecution case.  I will reluctantly point out to you that Eliot Spitzer was attorney general for the state of New York. You see what a disaster that turned into.

I’ve done a little investigation into this, and it appears that the U.S. attorney in question one Michael J. Garcia is one that can be trusted.  Mr. Garcia is the former assistant Secretary for immigration and customs enforcement, (ICE) and was appointed to the position by President Bush back in march of 2003. Garcia actually served as the acting commissioner of the INS from December of 2002 until it was absorbed by DHS.

The position that Mr. Garcia now holds his one that he has held previously, from 1992 until 2001, and he built himself quite the record while there.

Of course, I fully anticipate that this is going to generate a lot of traffic on the left side of the sphere about how a prosecutor is a crony of the Bush white house.  Of course, that complaint would be present about anyone who was not a clone of the aforementioned Mr. Spitzer… whose own ethics have been the subject of legal investigation of late here in NY.

I not only to anticipate a vigorous prosecution as regards Mr Hsu, but I anticipate any one who was involved with him to be similarly prosecuted.  As a result, my guess is that Hillary Clinton will find herself, in this election cycle wishing that Barack Obama was the worst of her concerns.  I have a feeling, too, that the love affair she and Bubba have had with the Chinese of late, will be history.

As always, Memeorandum has lots of reax.

Is Mrs. Clinton’s campaign merely spinning, or spinning our out control.   Listen to Mrs. Clinton’s  pollster Mark Penn, video.   Penn’s attempted attack on Barack Obama, does not demonstrate Obama’s weaknesses, so much as it highlights Mrs. Clinton’s.  

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is attacking Obama for a alleged lack of expericence, when Mrs. Clinton has virtually none herself.   Obama has more experience in elective office than Mrs. Clinton.  He served in the Illinios legislature.

Outside from her lackluster seven years in the Senate, Mrs. Cllinton has never held elective office and has no successfull experience with anything other than trading cattle futures and managing bimbo eruptions.

Ed Morrissey, Captain’s Quarters,  highlights a new poll showing Mrs. Clinton’s supposed inevitable campaign taking on water like the S.S. Minnow.  

Hat tips:  TPM, Memeorandum.

I’m back.   The computer got hit by a nasty virus.  Actually had to watch television and read books. 

 Speaking of returns. he’s back, and blacker than ever, from the Baltimore Sun:

Don Imus returned to the airwaves yesterday, eight months after he was fired for a racially charged remark about Rutgers’ women’s basketball team, and introduced a new cast that included two black comedians, Karith Foster and Tony Powell.

Let see how long this toned down, and whimped down, Imus lasts.

Hat Tip photo:  Business Week.

Captain Ed:

Recall the pushback when we linked to the Zogby poll that showed Hillary’s support eroding at the end of November? The numbers showed Hillary losing ground against all Republican contenders, and had some correlation with Rasmussen’s numbers as well. Nonsense, came the response; Gallup’s polling in November — two weeks earlier — showed Hillary maintaining her momentum.

Oops:

Though both candidates maintain their leads, Rudy Giuliani continues to lose support and Hillary Clinton drops nine points in Gallup’s latest poll.

Why, of course. this is exactly the phenomenon that I described when we discussed what was happening with Fred Thompson’s campaign.  The one on the top of the hill is the easiest to shoot at.  It now becomes incumbent on the second tier players the capitalize on all that. Says Ed:

It would be a free-fall, if the Democrats had a candidate who could take advantage of Hillary.

Limbaugh seems to think they do…. If Obama actually has the stones for it.

But as if to reinforce the points I made earlier about peaking too soon in the polling, Huckabee, isremarkably uncomfortable with the label of “Front Runner”. One gets the impression that Obama is keeping his powder dry, too.

Discussion, Memeorandum

WASHINGTON (AP) -(Via KOMO) A former aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was in federal custody after being arrested on a charge of attempting to sexually exploit a minor.

James Michael McHaney was fired Friday from his job as a scheduler for Cantwell, hours after he was arrested by FBI agents. The FBI said in court papers that McHaney is accused of trying to set up a meeting with a witness posing online as a teenage boy.

McHaney, who appeared in federal court on Saturday, was being held without bond pending a court hearing on Wednesday, said Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Hmmm.

Surber (Via Memeorandum)

Cantwell has no party when an aide is arrested, but had one when she went to Cambodia.

Alicia Mundy of the Seattle Times filed a dispatch on an aide of Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state being arrested on pedophile-related charges — after the Smoking Gun broke the story. In 296 words, Mundy never mentioned Cantwell’s party, although in the final paragraph she hinted that the aide might be a Democrat.

You wouldn’t expect them not to dodge that point, would you Don?

No matter how this can be sliced, the double standard has been well established over the years.  This is merely one more example of such.

And note the wording in the AP story I linked:

A former aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was in federal custody after being arrested on a charge of attempting to sexually exploit a minor.

The guy was on a lunch break from Cantwell’s office when arrested.  Miswording it to create a little separation and cover for the Democrat?

And they wonder why the press isn’t trusted, anymore.

Oh… another conenction, from Redstate:

Hey, this guy was John Kerry’s travel coordinator in 2004. Imagine the fun he probably had on the road!

No, thanks. I think I’d rather not.

Memeorandum has a pretty good list of reax.

Mark Steyn really should have his own category for this stuff.  The man is a master.

You can’t assimilate immigrants and minorities unless you give them something to assimilate to. It’s one thing to teach children their history “warts and all”, quite another to obsess on the warts at the expense of all else. The West’s demographic weakness is merely the physical embodiment of a broader loss of civilisational confidence. Australia should never have had a “department of immigration and multicultural affairs”, but, given that it did, Howard was right to rename it the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Government should promote citizenship, not multiculturalism.

Amen, and Amen.

Noted at Right Wing News, this morning, a collection of quotes from the Daily Kos, guaranteed to keep you regular.

An example:

8) “I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and (Ahmadinejad would) probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon…

Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes. But that’s not all…

I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.” — sallykohn

Let’s call this one what it is; a Jewish lesbian in Iran… Such an inDUHvidual’s life expectancy would be from the time the plane landed, until she almost made it out of the plane. On an almost intuitive level, one would hope she knows this.  And yet….

Oh, never mind. Move along, citizens. Nothing to see here.

I’m not so sure about this one.  Ron Christie says it’s the beginning of the end for Hillary Clinton and her dreams of being president.

To be honest, I never thought in the first few days of December I would proffer that the Hillary Campaign for President is near the end. To wit, her national poll numbers have been plummeting since she seemed unable to answer a simple question whether she favored issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. She tried to be too cute on the issue by implying that she supported the issuance of such licenses before commenting that people were piling on and that she was being attacked by “the boys.”

While this might sound like a sound strategy in the comfort of campaign office suites, American voters see through such cynicism and posturing for pure political purposes. And now the Clinton strategy has backfired, and backfired badly.

As I say, I’m not quite sure about all that.  I do agree that these things damaging , at a time when her campaign could least afford it.  That having been said, let’s not overplay that particular hand.  let’s not stretch this one stumble into “Game Over”.

And, you know, there’s an awful lot of people out there, who are writing off Hillary Clinton’s chances in the selection.  But history counsels that a lot can happen in a year, of election cycle.  If I’m not much mistaken, Bill Clinton ran a third place campaign, in New Hampshire back in ’92.  Some of you will remember how that one came out.  Further, most of the pundits who have been making pronouncements about the primaries this time around , myself included, have been wildly inaccurate during other presidential campaigns.

Look, gang… Frontrunners do have a tendency to stumble. That comes as a product of being the target of everybody on the letter below you…  And, often than not, such frontrunners are their own worst enemy, as in Hillary’s case.  That’s simply the nature of the game.  But here’s where the campaign organization and the experience thereof comes into play.  There is nobody on the face of this planet who was better than playing the political game for its own sake than the Clintons and the people that surround them.  She has, in my read, everything she needs to attain the Democrat party nomination. most particularly she and her people are long on political experience.

Now, before you start thinking that I’m singing her praises, I am most certainly not.  That I think she knows how to play the political game, and should not be written off so easily, does not mean that I consider to be qualified as president of the united states.  Those are two vastly different things.

But frankly, I think we do ourselves  a disservice when we prematurely write the woman off as so many have done recently.  Aside from the credibility factor, look what happens when we buy into this lowered expectation of her performance.  Let’s say that she manages to pull out a reasonably good finish in Iowa and New Hampshire , say, a second place in both.  I will guarantee you that her people, experienced as they are, will be in front of cameras the following morning explaining how this miracle occurred due to her leadership.

My advice ? Sit back and wait. In the end, while it’s true that if Hugo Chavez can lose, Hillary Clinton can too, and for the same reason, we don’t have a solid indications that’s what’s happening yet.

Billy;

You had an Uncle that worked for The Rock?

(Sigh) I’d have loved to talk to him at length on that subject.

Yeah, OK, I picked up on just that one aspect of a full life. Then again, I’m a railfan.

But you know what? Even exclusive of that point, I would still loved to have spoken with him… to absorb part of his unique vantage point of the world and our history in it.

By way of comparison and explanation, I have remarked several times in obits, here, that one person or another has lived a full life and nobody should be sad, because they’re gone, now. I still think that’s true.  See, generally when people I remark about here, die… their history is already pretty much known and explored, either by public exposure over a period of decades, or by their their memoirs, or what have you.

But in the case of Joe and Jane Average, just everyday Americans going about their everyday lives, that history,  and those life experiences, get lost to you and I and the remainder of the culture.   For that reason, I think, those kind of people dying are a bigger loss, than the death of anyone with celebrity.

Your uncle lived a very full life, and it seems to me a shame that so much of his life history should be lost to us.

And yes, I’m using him as an example…. but I have had those thoughts often enough when I see someone I barely knew died, and yet he has so impressive an obit that it takes most of a cup of coffee to read the thing.  Or, in your uncle’s case.

My respects on your loss. For the reasons I mention above, it’s a shared one.