Huckabee's Horton

I've been reading for a few weeks now that Mike Huckabee has a "Willie Horton" in his closet. You might recall from the 1988 election that Horton, while imprisoned for murder, was released on a weekend furlough program which Mass. governor Michael Dukakis supported, and while on this little getaway he raped a woman and stabbed her fiancee. This was used against Dukakis in the campaign to show that he was weak on crime.

The Arkansas Journal, a conservative Arkansas blog, has a lot of information on Huckabee, including problems with the rebuttal of many charges against Huckabee's record, and more information about Huckabee's "Willie Horton," Wayne Dumond. Dumond was in prison for raping a cheerleader.

According to the information I've read (and the Arkansas Journal link to an Arkansas Times piece is the most informative), Huckabee intervened with the parole board on Dumond's behalf to get him released. Huckabee apparently believed Dumond was innocent and had been railroaded. A number of sources say Huckabee was woefully uninformed of the facts of Dumond's case, but wouldn't listen when the facts were presented to him.

In any event, the parole board, which says it was acting on Huckabee's recommendation, released Dumond. Shortly after Dumond was released, he raped and killed another woman. He was also a lead suspsect in the rape and murder of a second woman.

Huckabee now denies that he had anything substantive to do with Dumond's release. The information in testimony from the Arkansas Times, however, indicates otherwise.

I don't know anything beyond what I've read about this case, but these accusations that Huckabee was soft on crime would again be in keeping with Huckabee's assertion that he's "a 'grace' Christian, not a 'law' Christian." Such assertions are often made by folks who are unwilling to face the fact that some people actually do commit acts that are evil, and are also unwilling to face the fact that justice demands harsh punishment for harsh acts.

The world is full of evil people, and most of them would love to see the United States at the bottom of a smoking ash heap. I don't think we want a president--Democrat or Republican-- who doesn't understand the nature of evil and who is unwilling to deal firmly with evil. As the Dumond case illustrates, the cost of letting bloodthirsty monsters run loose is too high, regardless of whether those monsters are foreign or domestic.