Arkansas Blog

Hopefully there's a personal story coming about a petition delivered to Huck at his office years ago, before the AT blog, about his clemency for criminals. It's a helluva a story told by a fairly well known Arkie.

What is the point of clemency? Are we simply letting out the "lesser of evils?" If we let out one hundred inmates and one kills four innocent people, is it worth it? Doesn't the Clemmons incident override any "positive" results from clemency? What is going on.....

So let us conjecture the Huck Future...he wont be a candidate for anything again. Will Fox let him fade away? Probably. Will he continue to "write" books and sell them. Yes, even more so now, as there won't be much of another platform for him. The Ouachita Baptistiversity chair seems to be un-endowed.
Did he manage to pay down his NLR Retirement Manse? Does it have a front porch and rocking chair? Oh for George Fisher to be here now, adding old Huck to the Old Guard and the Front Porch Brigade with Justice Jim, Orval, Frank and them. Maybe the NLR city council will appoint him to finish out the Cary Gaines term. Maybe he can run against that You Tube Conway School Board nutcase (David Hunnicutt or sumpthin like that...is that piece for real, by the way?).
So, in the end I see him roaming Indian Hills in North Argenta, trotting out a book under the Harding label every six months or so, and buying scratch off lottery cards at the Toot N Moo in Sherwood. Anybody got a better future scenario for The Hucked?

And it may or may not be good enough to make Norma's Final Five Haiku Tourney, but I refer you to Norma's Huck Haiku contest over yonder on that blog...I really like my last entry (post # 40 or 41) for timeliness.

"...is it worth it?"

What if one saved four people and none had committed a murder or crime after a release? Ok, it's not likely 100 people would stay on the straight and narrow. You don't have that with those parolled.

Maybe a news magazine (print or TV) or someone will go through all of Huckabee's releases, get the backgrounds, and have a "Where are they today?" story. What's Huckabee's score compared with the average score of other governors combined during the same period? Maybe compare his batting average of those-that-returned-to-a-life-of-crime-as-far-as-we-know to the 1033 that he released or had their sentences reduced.

The main problem with Huckabee is he was too flippant about his choices. And, I bet he still is.

I liked this from the article linked:

"My word to Mr. Huckabee is man up and own what you did," Jegley said Monday night.

"What he doesn't explain is why this one stood out of the hundreds equally deserving on that ground alone."

And this, of course, is the whole issue.

Remember the old Huckster, when we first heard of his self-righteous self in 1992, called the Honorable Dale Bumpers a pornographer simply because he voted for an appropriation (along with most Republicans) for the arts.
Using his 1992 logic, what would he call himself in this situation?

Clemency is most appropriately utilized in cases of eldery or terminally ill prisoners. Not homicidal maniacs.

>>main problem with Huckabee is he was too flippant about his choices.

In my words he possesses poor judgment skills. He got his Ark R party in deep trouble with finances.
He attempted to put the state perpetually in debt.
He pardoned way too many violent criminals.
He ain't responsible for anything.

In other words,he takes full responsibility, but ITS NOT HIS FAULT!!!

I think in part he liked playing (being) the big dog. Having Brother Otis from some remote corner of the state call him and say he believed they met at a Southern Baptist convention before, and Brother Otis just happened to have a church member (when he wasnt in jail) in prison that he personally thought was ready for parole or whatever.

And Huck could play the big dog and check into that for Brother Otis, and probably have someone check into the general state of Brother Otis and his family and finances, and then if the prisoner was appropriately reformed in the Rose Garden, huck could let him out and probably get a few nice parting gifts along the way. The man didnt seem to realize he was taking chances with people who had KILLED other people, not cut in line in front of someone at walmarts express lane.

I think it's fair in this case to gneeralize oopsie and say that the lives of those four Washington police officers would probably have been more productive than the life of the life-long criminal(s) who killed them.

memo to huck: This ain't gonna go away. Not. Ever. Even his advisors agreed with our eLwood that he was too flippant about his choices. He never seemed to realize that this wasn't a tv show and that, if given a chance, every single damn prisoner in the system would tell Huck yessir, I done found Jesus and I wont do bad no more, bye now. what did he THINK these people were gonna say?