Tom’s Big Picture

Gullible and self-righteous: click here for the details on one of his pardons.

Gov. Huckabee probably never read the confession of a demented killer named Glen Green before he made the monster eligible for parole.

Green’s confession is so depraved, its sadistic details so scary that no sane, responsible adult would consider him for parole.

If the governor didn’t read the confession, he is guilty of dereliction of duty.

But if he read the confession and still considers Green deserving of parole, he’s certainly unfit to hold office. Who would free a madman who beat an 18-year-old woman with Chinese martial-arts sticks, raped her as she barely clung to life, ran over her with his car, then dumped her in the bayou, her hand reaching up, as if begging for mercy?

In usual fashion, Huckabee’s office didn’t even contact the victim’s family about the clemency.

Although he’s required to by the Constitution, the governor, as is his custom, won’t say why he granted clemency to this crazed killer (over the unanimous objections of the Post-Prison Transfer Board).

As he grants clemency to scores of violent criminals, Huckabee’s motives are the subject of speculation: Why, people are asking, is he doing it? After studying the record for several weeks, all one can say is that his actions perhaps reflect a combination of arrogance and avarice and ignorance.

While his fellow governors keep electing him to top positions in their little club, he has alienated Arkansans of both parties. They’re shocked at not only the amazing number of clemencies but also at the way he ignores the suffering of the victims’ families, who are always the last to know when their loved one’s killer is up for parole.

Bilenda Harris-Ritter, an attorney who now lives in California, is one of those people who worry all the time that Huckabee might free the man who killed their relatives. Harris-Ritter’s parents were murdered in north Arkansas, and she has had to deal with heartless state bureaucrats as she fights to keep the killer locked up.

Now why did he do it?  Well, because one of his friends told him this guy was really alright and had come to Jesus.  You see, Huckabee’s trusts his friends more than a jury or the concerns of victims’ families:

Huckabee apparently listened to Green’s minister (and a friend of the governor), who thinks the murder was an accident and Green was forced to confess.

This guy shouldn’t be anywhere near a pulpit, much less the Presidency.  Doesn’t he realize what will happen if pardons and commutations in this life are linked to repentance and conversion?  Does it not occur to him that pardoning criminals for appearing repentant will end all real repentance and salvation that might otherwise occur?

Huckabee is from Arkansas, and having grown in up in Texas and Louisiana, I can tell you what Arkansas is about: it’s basically Louisiana except the politicians have less style and they can be bought at cheaper prices.

Huckabee’s record of commutations just looks like somebody who’s taking cash under the table.  What politician would spend that kind of political capital without some of the real kind in return?  When you consider the materialist bent revealed by he and his wife’s use of “wedding registries” to get gifts when they left office (click here for that story- I mean really, if this isn’t Clintonian white trash* behavior, I don’t know what is), it doesn’t seem all that unlikely.

Or else he’s a soft-headed liberal at heart with poor judgment.

Or if you’re self-righteous Mike Huckabee, maybe both.  Just a little cash under the table to grease the wheels of justice, that’s all…

There are three presidential candidates I consider to be worse than Bush on the Republican side: Giuliani, McCain, and now Huckabee.  Let the voter beware.

*This is a phrase I really hate to use, as it fuels the insanity of the Great White Status Game, but I couldn’t think of an idiom that better captures the essence of Mike Huckabee.