How am I to buy the notion that Maurice Clemmons was anywhere close to sane in 2000 when then Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee commuted his prison sentence and prompted Clemmon's early release from prison? Clemmons simply thought of himself as Jesus...and Huckabee apparently thinks he has a direct line to God!
"At the time of his arrest in Washington state earlier this year, investigators said Clemmons had visions that he was Jesus Christ and that the world was on the verge of the apocalypse. He also "told the officer President Obama and Lebron James are his brothers, Oprah (Winfrey) is his sister and referred to himself as 'the beast,"' according to court papers obtained by The News Tribune of Tacoma."
Clemmons has a violent, erratic past, and authorities in Washington state and Arkansas — where then-Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2000 commuted his 108-year prison sentence for armed robbery and other offenses — are facing tough questions about why an apparently violent and deranged man was out on the street.
In a statement posted on the conservative Newsmax.com Web site, Huckabee said: "I take full responsibility for my actions of nine years ago. I acted on the facts presented to me in 2000. If I could have possibly known what Clemmons would do nine years later, I obviously would have made a different decision. But if the same file was presented to me today, I would have likely made the same decision." ~ AP Seattle
And this most recent statement from the full article by Huckabee himself over at Newsmax.com today...12/01/2009
"I wish his file had never crossed my desk, but it did. The decision I made is one that I now wish were different, but I could only look backwards at his case, not forward. None of this is of any comfort to the families of these police officers nor should it be. Their loss is senseless. No words or deeds by anyone will bring them back to their loved ones. Our system is not perfect and neither are those responsible for administering it.
The system and those of us who are supposed to make sure it works sometimes fail. In this case, we clearly did." ~ Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
And make sure that the system works without the influence to your decision being based on your own self-anointed perception as to who is now "OSAS" (once saved always saved) and who is not.
Mr. Huckabee...thou doth protest too much. Since Sunday you have been treading water by tiptoeing on the heads of others proclaiming yourself nothing more than a bureaucratic pencil pusher who had these reams of pardons cross your desk. I'm not buying what you are peddling.
It is abundantly clear that your evangelical blinders played a very crucial part in the paroles you did approve. How many of the 1,023 approvals you signed were born again inmates? We don't know. But the fact that you even referred to Wayne DuMond as "Dear Wayne" makes me nauseous!
A little over 10 years ago, the paths of these three men merged in Little Rock, the state capital, where Huckabee was the new governor. With Cole's urging, and with DuMond insisting he was "born again," Huckabee played a key role in setting free a rapist who was supposed to serve many more years, say three of the seven members of the state board that paroled DuMond.
After being released, DuMond moved to Missouri, where less than a year later he suffocated the mother of three in a Kansas City suburb. Police suspect that he killed another woman there as well.
"The state parole board acted before he had to make a final call. It was the parole board, Huckabee said, that unlocked the cell door."
How a convicted rapist went free has become an issue in today's increasingly heated presidential campaign. As if out of nowhere, Huckabee has surged to a leading spot in public opinion polls in the Republican contest. Amid the new attention, he is facing questions about whether his deep Christian faith -- what on the stump he says "defines me" -- colored his view of Wayne DuMond's case.
Cole, the minister who befriended DuMond, said: "The governor felt compassion for Wayne. He was sorry for him. So, I asked the governor to help. I asked him if anything could be done. And Mike had a lot of people on his neck trying to get him to get Wayne released."
"I became his spiritual director," Cole said. "He was a nice fella, and it was hard to believe he could have done what he was accused of doing. And Wayne claimed to be saved. So, we'd sit and talk and pray for two hours, and other times he'd call me on the phone a lot. Collect.
Cole said he talked to "probably a hundred people" about his hope of winning DuMond's release, turning foremost to the evangelical community. He said many evangelicals were encouraged that DuMond had claimed a religious conversion...
"Dear Wayne. . . . My desire is that you be released from prison," the governor wrote. "I feel now that parole is the best way. . . ." ~ LA Times 2008
Ahhh...and again, it was the parole board that did it...not Mr. Huckabee's sense of divine knowledge. Is that what you are getting from this? Me neither.
"It was a horrible situation, horrible. I feel awful about it in every way. I wish there was some way I could go back and reverse the clock and put him back in prison," the candidate said at a news conference.
I am sensing a pattern in his excuses and his expressions of regret that if he could only go back he would not have released these violent criminals.
So I have this question for Mr. Huckabee! Just how many others of the 1,023 criminals that you approved release of are your redeemed born agains?
Tell us! How many more are wandering this world with the potential to rape, harm and murder innocent people? Because now we have a NEW name to add to our list of violent criminals who were lucky enough to receive early parole under your watch in Arkansas! Who? Well he is the driver and accomplice of Maurice Clemmons of course!
Darcus Allen...sentenced to 25 years in prison for a 1990 double murder at a Little Rock liquor store. He was paroled in 2004 having only served 14 years. Gee...criminal minds, paroled and palling. Who could have seen this coming? Mr. Huckabee? And look! There were lots of fraternity brothers in their residence! Where are they now?
"Arkansas prison spokeswoman Dina Tyler says Allen and Clemmons never shared a cell, but lived in the same barracks - along with 50-100 other inmates - at various times during their imprisonment."
How many others are out there that you are going to come forward and claim "that the system made you do it"...and that if you could go back in time you "would do things differently"?
You have a family Huck! So do I...and as outraged as I am at not only what you did in the name of Jesus, but that you arrogantly decided for the rest of us that our daughters might be raped and brutally murdered by your pet born agains. Or that our loved ones may be randomly assassinated by another Huckabee project.
Do me a favor? QUIT apologizing...quit expressing sympathies to the victims' families...just quit. Go away...stay at Fox where you are surrounded by your own ilk and never, never govern again...you are a travesty!