UPDATED: This is not about Mike Huckabee’s actions after the Clemmons incident. It is not about clemency. It is about the horrific and outrageous way the far right is piling on Mike Huckabee, who must be truly suffering over this. I do wish the far right, who currently appears to be meandering around basically soul-less could understand what compassion truly was. Unfortunately they have sold their soul for purity.
One of the worst parts of this is the fact that there is something that is blinking like a flashing light. Why isn’t anyone discussing the fact that these murders were racially motivated?
If a white criminal had a former cell mate who was driving a get-away car while he went in and shot 4 black cops, the whole country would be up in arms.
There is a tremendous amount of blame being tossed at Huck. Like Judge Nepalitano said, his is NOT responsible for any of this. Why was a person who had been arrested for the rape of a 12 year old allowed out on such a low bail?
ORIGINAL POST: According to Paul Kengor, the author of God and Ronald Reagan, Reagan’s Christian faith was “…the beacon by which he steered the nation during his eight years in the White House…that faith was a crucial element in ending the Cold War…”
“We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of our makeup. How can we love our country and not love our countrymen? And loving them reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick and provide opportunity to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?””
The Far Right has now doomed itself. What a few of us thought was a problem is now turning into a rotten carcass, dead, rank, and full of disease ridden maggots and filth. Not only have they managed to throw Reagan under the bus, but now they are stating that a Christian is not capable of being POTUS.
Ace of Spades wrote:
“...Here are my two major problems with Huckabee, apart from his “compassionate” Social-Democratic-Christian soft-socialism. (I mean Social-Democratic-Christian in the European sense — important, big parties in Europe are pretty damn socialistic on economic/”social justice” issues, but are more moderate and rightward on other issues, especially morality and the like.)
The first is that I find him so transparent and shameless in his manipulations that I weep for those who are somehow prey to it. He’s underhanded and mercenary and self-pitying and always manages to be nasty with that smooth, soft demeanor. I just hate his guts on a personal level. It bothers me that he’s so damned obvious about his manipulations and that many people’s bullshit detectors are so defective they fail to go off.
The second is that he is simply not savvy enough to be President. He’s a chump, a rube, a simple-minded dupe. We don’t know yet what his reasons for pardoning this particular possibly-oversentenced repeat felon are, but we know the long sordid history of his pardons: left-leaning pastors knew they only had to utter the magic words “Saved by the Grace of Christ” to Huckabee and there was a fair shot that hardened career criminals would get the Get out of Jail Free card they sought….”
Ultimately, this is not about the murders of four cops, this is about the far right doing anything, and I literally mean anything, to destroy anyone they consider impure. This is about the character assassination of good men and women who refuse to kowtow to the mercurial and increasingly outrageous demands of a small group of ego-driven bloggers, pundits, and columnists, aided by their current version of deity, Glenn Beck. This is about vindictive cruelty. It is about power. It is about rank immature behavior on the part of people who claim to be “conservative”.
If Ronald Reagan were alive he would be the first one to denounce their behavior. When he was POTUS he was the first to denounce the behavior of the far right. The other problem is we’re dealing with a bunch of ignorant dorks when it comes to history. Either they are so ill-educated that they are making fools of themselves, or they are so egotistical that they only care about their pathetic wishes.
It is a recipe for disaster.
Evidently as far as the far right is now concerned, if a person is “too much of a Christian” they no longer have the capacity to be a good President. If this is now what it means to be a conservative, that one cannot have compassion for people, then by golly The Pink Flamingo is no longer a conservative. I’ll take being a Christian any old day of the week.
Bryan Fischer, the Executive Director of the Idaho Values Alliance claims to be a Christian. I think we can toss those talking points out the window after Fischer proves he doesn’t know you know what about being a Christian, let alone forgiveness. The “Christian” values pile on and destruction of Mike Huckabee is repulsive, disgusting, and completely wrong-headed. If this is what it is to have “conservative valued” count me out. I’ll take Christian values – as in love – not retribution – any day of the week.
“…As an observer once put it, “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” The way in which civil authority shows compassion to victims is by punishing their victimizers to the full extent of the law. To show mercy to violent criminals puts the government on the wrong side of justice, and turns the power of the state into a tool for injustice.
It puts the weight of the state on the side of perpetrators and inflicts a second criminal wound on the victims and their families. The primary function of government, according to Romans 13, is the administration of justice, which it carries out by punishing those who deprive fellow citizens of their God-given rights to life, liberty and property. God has even authorized the use of capital punishment (“he does not bear the sword in vain”) so that the state may be “the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” If a public servant cannot be trusted with this most basic of all moral responsibilities, how can he be trusted with any other?
We were rightly outraged when President Clinton issued an irresponsible pardon for fraudster financier Marc Rich. But at least nobody died. The governor has tried to wash his hands of the affair by posting a statement on his website blaming it all on “a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State,” as if he had little or nothing to do with it. It appears that Governor Huckabee could not be trusted with the power of the pardon as governor. Perhaps he should not be trusted with the power of the pardon as president….”
Fischer forgot to add the following to his repulsive Calvinist adulteration of Paul. I guess love does not apply to Mike Huckabee. After all, Huck is not “pure” and must be destroyed.
9The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery;
You shall not murder;
You shall not steal;
You shall not covet’;
and any other commandment, are summed up in this word,
‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
10Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, l
ove is the fulfilling of the law.
According to the Far Right (allegedly the conservative “Christian” contingency) Mike Huckabee is not capable of being POTUS because he is too Christian. How the H-E-Double-Toothpick can a person be “Too Christian”? Let’s put it this way, if they’ve come for Huckabee, then the slaughter of Sarah Palin by the far right will soon be making headlines. She will do something they don’t like, show a streak of independent thought, or maybe not dance to their abject agenda and she will be outta’ here.
How long are Republicans going to all the hate-filled minions of the extreme far right dictate terms, denigrate our leaders, and generally ruin our chances for 2010? When is someone going to pull the plug on the vile, nasty poisoned pen machine belonging to Michelle Malkin. You know the one - conservatives love to use it to destroy Republicans? As long as she fired some of the first shots about values, Christian judgement, and Mike Huckabee, perhaps she should look in the mirror. The problem, though is she might not be able to see her reflection in it.
She wrote the following:
“…Huckabee got softball treatment on O’Reilly. He blamed other prosecutors and judges while downplaying his ill-considered judgment. There was no discussion of Huck’s long, controversial record on mass clemencies that resulted in more innocent victims of brutal crimes. And O’Reilly unbelievably praised Huckabee for his openness in explaning clemency decisions — which should cause the entire state of Arkansas to shake in derisive laughter and revulsion given the former GOP governor’s stubborn refusal to explain his decisions until forced to so by a massive public backlash.
You can watch the brief interview here. Missing: Any mention of the blood-boiling Wayne Dumond clemency, the statistics cited above on Huck’s reckless clemency mania, and Huck’s direct role in granting clemencies when lobbied by pastor friends who knew which buttons to push….”
So, how long are Republicans going to put up with the Malkin brand of half-truths? She missed a heck of a lot of the story, but then the whole idea was not to tell what really happened, but to destroy Mike Huckabee. The worst of it is Huckabee is a good, decent, honorable man who DOES NOT DESERVE to be subjected to Malkin’s brain of “truth” – or rather hate.
Malkin, R. S. McCain, Eric Erickson, and all the other little tea partying freaks would not know how to work with a decent and honorable man. All they know how to do is destroy. It has nothing to do with the events in Seattle. It has everything to do with promoting their personal extremist agenda. It is about destroying good Republicans who do not meet their version of “pure”.
Tommy Oliver wrote the following on Race1012. I think it says it all.
“…The truth is that I do not see how a man of his make up would be able to make sound decisions in a position of absolute power. His instinctive nature relies to much on his personal faith, and while that does not disqualify him from being POTUS, it does raise the question of whether or not he would be able to make the tough decisions that might not line up directly with his spiritual faith, and that frightens me, as an American….”
The Pink Flamingo has seen some absolutely vile political attacks from the far right against very good Republicans over the years, but it is NOTHING compared to what they are doing to Mike Huckabee.
“While never willing to bow to a tyrant, our forefathers were always willing to get to their knees before God. When catastrophe threatened, they turned to God for deliverance. When the harvest was bountiful, the first thought was thanksgiving to God. Prayer is today as powerful a force in our nation as it has ever been. We as a nation should never forget this source of strength.“
Let’s try to follow their pathetic attempt to destroy the man, primarily because he is not “pure”. The real reason stems back to immigration reform where he ran afoul of the usual suspects who are going to try and destroy anyone who does not agree with them.
John Fund wrote in Tuesday’s Opinion Journal’s Poltical Diary:
“…Mr. Huckabee’s allies also note that the Arkansas Parole Board had recommended Clemmons be released. But none of this will stop the torrent of outrage flooding the conservative blogosphere. Old stories from the 2008 campaign have surfaced reminding people that Mr. Huckabee was criticized for granting a pardon in 1999 to convicted rapist Wayne DuMond, who then went on to rape and kill another woman. Even former Huckabee aides say the Clemmons case makes their man damaged goods for the 2012 campaign. “Ironically, what makes Huckabee such an appealing Presidential candidate — his empathy for all people and genuine belief in the individual — is also the trait that will prevent him from ever reaching the White House,” Joe Carter, a former press aide to Mr. Huckabee, writes on his blog. “His experiences and intuitions that served him well as a minister of the gospel were not always applicable in a governor of a state. The unfortunate reality is that for politicians, unlike pastors, there are limits to compassion.“
There are times when piling on gets old. This is one of the times when it is vicious, destructive, and is counter-productive. Regular Pink Flamingo readers know I have railed against people like Malkin who delight in destroying people like Lindsey. This though, is beyond anything I’ve ever seen them do. Not only are they basically LYING about Mike Huckabee’s roll in the horrific Clemmons story, but they are giving a pass to the judicial system in Seattle who caused the actual problem.
How does anyone handle such a disaster politically?
How should “Christian” conservatives handle it?
Maybe they should try a little compassion, a little honor, and a little decency. I cannot even conceptualize why seemingly rational people would try to destroy a man over a decision he made years ago.
Maybe they should read the passage about casting the first stone.
P. S. The offensive quote at the top of the page comes from Reagan.
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December 1st, 2009 on 10:57 pm
The problem, though, is that Clemmons is not the only recipient of clemency who went on to commit a horrific crime. There was the Wayne DuMond case that was rehashed in 2008.
One mistake is understandable. But we’re starting to see more than one mistake in which a hardened criminal who received a form of clemency from Huckabee went on to kill.
Yes, there were other failures, but Huckabee screwed up, and he seems to be trying to use his Christianity to avoid some responsibility here. He’s using it as a shield to avoid his responsibility in both the DuMond and Clemmons matters.
Huckabee does have some responsibility for the tragedy in Washington. It’s not about whether he is a Christian, Taoist, or an atheist. He’s had more than one bad clemency calls come to light, and needs to be held accountable.
December 1st, 2009 on 11:34 pm
There was another one. I don’t think that is the issue. What angers me is the way the far right is attacking, and ignoring all the facts. Evidently there were two judges in Seattle who let the guy out on a slap on the wrist bond after he molested a little girl. If anyone is to blame, they are.
SJR