Wow … I first read about Wayne Dumond months ago, so I thought that the issue was gone. Apparently, it’s more accurate to say that no one else bothered to look until now.
So, let’s look at it.
Wayne Dumond is being equated with Willie Horton, but that’s flawed from the start.
Willie Horton was out of prison on a furlough program which Gov. Dukakis supported. Prison furlough is hyper-liberal madness. That is the nature of the attack on Gov. Dukakis — “Bush supports the death penalty, Dukakis supports prison furloughs.”
Wayne Dumond was paroled. Parole programs are reasonable. They’re not furlough.
Now, to the particulars. First of all, Gov. Huckabee did NOT pardon Wayne Dumond. End of story. Any reporter who says that this was a pardon is either lying, incompetent, or lazy. This is easy to verify.
Apparently, that includes ABC News.
Secondly, the parole board was entirely appointed by the previous governors — Democrats Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton. Gov. Huckabee did not grant parole, the parole board did. He had no particular role in the decision.
Third, when Gov. Huckabee took office, he received pardon requests on Dumond’s behalf. He chose not to grant the pardon — several times.
I’m sure that people will view this as destructive to the campaign. To be honest, that’s because there are people who won’t take a moment to look into facts.
The Truth Squad Responds Here: 12-5-07 (Huckabee himself), 11-9-07 (the broader story)
December 6, 2007 at 2:24 pm
You are right this will do some damage to Huckabee’s campaign. Best, though, that it comes out early. By the time most of the primaries roll around, it’ll be back page news.
December 6, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I think you’re right.
I’d rather, though, that the issue was seen to be what it is, rather than it just going away because of short attention span.
December 7, 2007 at 1:10 am
Somebody’s always going to be bringing this up (funny how the guy Bill Clinton let out of prison who went on to rob and murder a guy didn’t seem to “dog” him when he ran for President), and Mike (and us) will have to explain it again.
Strange how on Wednesday when this was the headline everywhere, that Mike actually had one of the biggest days ever on his website … new people signing up, giving money, becoming rangers.
As Roseanne Rosanna Dana use to say “it’s always something”.
December 7, 2007 at 8:43 am
The parole board said themselves they listened to his recommendation. He had given a speech previously in which he said he’d pardon Wayne Dumond. If they hadn’t done it, he would have done it himself.
December 7, 2007 at 12:36 pm
He gave a speech, then he looked into the matter and changed his position. This is knowable if you actually look into the information.
As for the three Clinton-appointed parole board members who try to pin the blame on Huckabee … well, … do you really put that much trust in Clinton appointees? Have you noticed that if this points to Clinton that the Clinton who is running might have fallout?
If Gov. Huckabee wanted to grant a pardon, then he would have. The charge simply doesn’t make any sense.
December 7, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I just don’t buy that the Clintons had more to do with this than Huckabee, when Huckabee went before the board himself to ask for the commutation. When did he say that he wouldn’t pardon Dumond? I’m genuinely interested. The Clintons have more skeletons in their closet than a Halloween store, but I don’t see this as a time when they’re culpable.
December 7, 2007 at 4:57 pm
It isn’t, in and of itself, something that I would blame on the Clintons — but it has repercussions since the parole board was all appointed by Govs. Clinton and Tucker. None of the parole board’s members was appointed by Gov. Huckabee.
As for when he said he wouldn’t pardon DuMond — it’s this simple: he didn’t.
I put two links in my post to responses to this story, but I’ll pull out some excerpts for you. In the end, what happened is that the parole board made a bad call. They had some legitimate reasons for this, but (as can happen in parole situations) were tragically wrong.
In 1992, Lt. Gov. (acting as Gov.) Jim Guy Tucker commuted DuMond’s sentence from life and made him eligible for parole.
In 1996, DuMond requested a further commutation to time served. In July of 1996, Gov. Tucker resigned as part of the Whitewater situation, and Lt. Gov. Huckabee assumed office. He considered, and initially indicated that he would grant that. In response to public outcry, he took another look at the situation and opted against the commutation.
This is part of Gov. Huckabee’s answer to your question:
For people to say that I was responsible in getting him out makes a few presumptions – number one, it presumes, I had an influence on Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker in 1992. The second presumption, it assumes I had the amazing persuasive power to go into a board of seven people, all of them appointed by Democratic governors before me and persuade them to do something they didn’t wish to do.
It also assumes that, not only did I have that power, but that only two of them changed story about what happened and they didn’t do so until 6 years later when we were in the middle of an election year. And after, and subsequent to the fact that I had not reappointed them to their $75,000 jobs on the parole board.
Now if you can follow that line and believe that I am solely responsible, then you’ll believe that. But you’ll believe a lot of other things as well. I am deeply sorry, and I mean, awfully, just horrified of what happened to (inaudible). And there is not a single person that will ever bring those women back to their families. But that’s the story, that’s what happened.
And yes it will come up in the presidential campaign. It came up in my governor’s campaign. There will be people who are victims who will probably be brought forth to make statements but, you know, I can’t fix it. I can only tell the truth and let the truth be my judge.
****
That whole thing is located at:
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Newsroom.Article&ID=127
There is no question, this is a tragic situation. But there’s nothing to show that Gov. Huckabee is to blame. I don’t want to be too hard on the parole board, because that is a mind-blowingly difficult kind of decision to make. Having never had to make parole decisions, I don’t want to be judgmental toward those who have … still, it’s clear that this was a bad call on their part.
It was also a bad call by Gov. Tucker to commute DuMond’s sentence in the first place. If he’d been left at life without parole, he never would have gotten out. Hindsight, though, is a wonderful thing.
The only way to pin this on Gov. Huckabee is to suggest that as a brand-new governor he was able to win over a parole board appointed by his predecessors. I think that that argument is very difficult to make credibly.
Had Huckabee actually pardoned him, you’d have a great point. Had Huckabee actually commuted the sentence to time served, you’d have a great point.
Realizing that this comment has almost become its own post … Why would the parole board members come out saying this? I see two main reasons … each centered on “If it’s not Huckabee’s fault, whose is it?”
1) The governors who appointed these members to the parole board, Gov. Tucker and Gov. Clinton are strong choices. This has fallout for the Clinton campaign — and since Tucker is a Whitewater figure, that can bring some of that nastiness back into the discussion. It’s much better to keep the blame on Huckabee.
2) The parole board members themselves might be blamed, since they made the decision to free this man. If they can claim that they were pressured by Gov. Huckabee, that might make fewer people take a long, hard look at them.
December 7, 2007 at 8:25 pm
There are some additional points in the timeline which I missed, and another person who supports Gov. Huckabee’s story:
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Newsroom.Article&ID=130