Huckabee Still Dodging Responsibility for Maurice Clemmons
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
It seems most people now understand and agree that, after Maurice Clemmons–a recipient of Mike Huckabee’s gubernatorial clemency–killed four policemen in Washington state, Mike Huckabee’s presidential aspirations are over.
Everyone, that is, except perhaps Mike Huckabee himself.
From The Politico:
“It really does show how sick our society has become that people are more concerned about a campaign three years from now than those grieving families in Washington,” Huckabee said during an interview on Joe Scarborough’s radio show. “It is disgusting, but people use anything as a political weapon.”…
Ahem. Those dead cops and their grieving families are exactly what we’re thinking of when we address your dereliction of duty, Mr. Huckabee. You should have been thinking of members of the public just like them when it crossed your mind to allow this animal to once again prowl unrestrained among the innocent.
But he’s right about something: something is indeed disgusting, alright.
Clemmons was convicted of aggravated robbery and burglary when he was 16, and at his sentencing hearing, he threw a padlock that came from his holding cell at a bailiff, instead hitting his mother. Clemmons needed to serve his full term, to properly punish him and to protect society.
What’s disgusting is the fact that Huckabee was naive enough to free this animal and turn him loose on society.
What’s disgusting is that even now, even as he claims to accept responsibility for this horrible outcome, Huckabee is trying to blame others and dodge accountability.
It is true that others in the justice system also neglected their primary duty to keep the public safe. It is true that they should also be held accountable.
But that does not remove one iota of Huckabee’s responsibility as the head of the executive branch of Arkansas to ensure the laws of his state are enforced and the people of his state are protected.
We know all too well that too many judges and corrections officials are totally daft when it comes to dispensing punishment commensurate with the crime, and placing public safety before the comforts of a criminal. Huckabee had a duty not to join them in there dereliction but to ensure justice was fully done.
If this was an isolated case, we might, might be able to write it off as an unfortunate fluke. But it isn’t.
As Thomas Jefferson said, “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
Mike Huckabee tragically forgot that (if he ever knew it to begin with)…perhaps up to 1,033 times.
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