It’s not as if Huckabee had a deep personal knowledge of the guy or his case when he issued the commutation. But then again, should governors commute prison sentences when they aren’t fully conversant with the facts and the people involved?

This is, as you all might guess, literally close to home. Okay, 9 years ago Huckabee acted and, in hindsight, not a good decision. But more recently our idiot juris prudence in Washington let this guy out on bail even though he had outstanding warrants elsewhere. Typical.

This make 5 cops killed by ambush this month in this area.(http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010386486_copreax30m.html)

I disagree. Huckabee is hardly the only person to blame in the long chain of bad decisions, but he does deserve to be hammered about this.

Pardons and commutations are tools granted to the executive office to be used only when there have been clear indications of a real miscarriage of justice. They aren’t tools to reward the politically connected (as Clinton used them). Nor are they tools by which you place your own moral judgment and own feelings of well-being higher than the law or the safety of the citizens you are sworn to protect (as Huckabee did).

There was never any indication of that a miscarriage of justice occured in the Clemmons case. Instead, the indication is that Huckabee commuted the sentense of the person in question out of what is at best nothing more than pity that a 17 year old man was serving an 100 year sentense for multiple crimes.

But pity in this case was an intensely misguided emotion. There was absolutely no indication that this man – not a youth, a man – had been a victim of circumstances, that this was a one time event, that the wrong person had been convicted, or that the judge had been unreasonably harsh under the circumstances. This wasn’t really pity motivated by a real knowledge of the person in question and a deep understanding of him and his circumstances. This was abstract pity based on ignorance and as such was nothing more than self-righteousness.

Huckabee may have made himself feel good by being ‘magnaminous’ and ‘compassionate’, but he showed absolutely no pity for this man’s victims – which given Clemmon’s history were almost inevitable. Real pity for Clemmons based on a personal knowledge of him and a deep understanding of him would have long ago put him in a mental health institution rather than a prison, but alas those institutions were closed decades ago by other people displaying self-serving ‘pity’ and ‘compassion’. As a result, we reutinely torture the mentally ill (often for life) in places of incarceration never designed to serve them as the best of a host of bad options left to us.

Compassion, pity, empathy and the like are the highest of virtues. But they are based on love, and love only comes from knowledge. Deprived of love, compassion, pity, and empathy are every bit as destructive as hatred, callousness, and cruelty.

I disagree. Huckabee should be hammered for this. I’ve never liked Huckabee. He’s too liberal with spending, and too weak on national defense. Take all the worst parts of George W Bush, and none of the good things, and you have Huckabee.

One more reason why we need conservatives, and not compassionate conservatives, as political leaders.

Fortunately, this pretty much ends his run for 2012.

He also commuted another prisoners sentence who a few weeks later raped and killed a young woman in Missouri.

John- you’re all wet on this one.

There was never any indication of that a miscarriage of justice occured in the Clemmons case.

Are you sure? On the face of it, sentencing a teenager to 95 years in prison for a series of non-violent crimes seems unduly harsh. Unless there were other, more serious charges that the linked article doesn’t list, that does seem like a rather extreme sentence.

I’ll be honest. I like Huckabee far less than McCain, and I had to hold my nose to vote for McCain. If Huckabee gets the nomination in ’12, I’ll be voting for Mickey Mouse.

Huckabee should be put in a sack and thrown in the river!

For what? Not being clairvoyant enough to know this guy would wait nine years then shoot some cops to death? Nonsense.

There are plenty of reasons to reject Mike Huckabee. This isn’t one of them.

I can haz some personal responsibility, kthx?

Yeah. Sorry, can’t forgive this. Commutations and pardons are not party favors, I got enough of that crap with the Clintons.

Posted by Christopher_Taylor
2009-11-30 20:57:44

So throw one Mr Taylor. I gave my brother a party, (no parade:( after he got back from Iraq. I also invited his squad. We had a blast, so tell you what. Stop complaining and do something.

Posted by Palin_will_lose
2009-11-30 23:51:47

Shut up, troll. Nobody cares what you think.

I doubt it, Rick. No one like a cop-killer.

“I doubt it, Rick. No one like a cop-killer.”

You don’t listen to rap much, do you.

More on the hopefully now roommate in hell of Clemmons; Lovelle Mixon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_shooting_of_Oakland_police_officers

I held my nose and covered my mouth in order to vote for McCain this last time around, but I’ll be damned if I would do that to vote for Huckelberry Hound. If that’s the best that we let the LSM pick for us, I’ll write someone name in, probably Fred Thompson, or Sarah Palin, or Duncan Hunter any one but Mike the Huckster.