Sadly, this gives us Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton

[elfs]

This morning, I woke to the horrifying news that four police officers in a suburb a few miles south of my own were shot dead while sitting in a café, syncing up their laptops and getting on with the day.

This evening, I learned that one side story to the whole thing might well end the career of Mike Huckabee. The alleged shooter, Maurice Clemmons, was in jail in Arkansas when Mike Huckabee, feeling magnanimous and merciful, let him go after 11 years of a 100+ years sentence, citing that the young man was only 17 when he committed the crimes. Prosecutors recommended against the release, saying Clemmons had repeatedly demonstrated a lack of psychological stability.

I kinda wish we'd had a better way of getting rid of Mike Huckabee. Even the Free Republic is saying he's toast. But, all the better for my cause:

Comments

[pieforeveryone.livejournal.com]

Depressingly enough, this is not the first time that someone pardoned by Mike Huckabee has later gone on to murder someone.
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=154e1aad-fd18-4efd-8d80-b5dab8559419
It didn't do him any real harm in 2002, it probably won't do any now. Of course, I hope I'm wrong about that.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

I suspect a killing involving four officers will be taken more seriously than a rape/killing. That is not *just* a matter of sexism, though in Huckabee's crowd I suspect that's not a trivial factor. It's also well-ingrained in our legal and social fabric that killing officers on-duty is particularly reprehensible.

I do think, as well, that the castration in the former case gave him an out that would ring true to many. Most of us have heard castration proposed as the only way to rehabilitate a sexual predator and would be sympathetic to the idea that someone might have believed that changed the equation.