Eight years later, Mike Huckabee can no longer hide from l'affaire Dumond

Tristero over at Digby's place has done a great job on this story, which until now has been (predictably) ignored by the mainstream media. But now, with Mike Huckabee surging in Iowa, the MSM has for some reason decided that the story is important. Brian Ross at ABC picks it up, and will have the story on Good Morning America this morning (video when I find it). CBS News picked it up yesterday.

My theory is that because Huckabee is a theocrat rather than a corporatist, the companies that own the media want to stop him, but it doesn't matter. The Dumond story is so ugly, and so emblematic of the kind of Clinton Derangement Syndrome that infects the entire Republican Party, that whatever the motivation, I'm glad it's getting out.

In 1988, the campaign of George H.W. Bush ran this ad against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis:

The ad worked, and Dukakis' reputation as "soft on crime" never recovered.

But with Huckabee, you have a convicted rapist not just released for weekend furloughs, but outright released, and for only one reason: because wingnuts insisted that because the woman Dumond raped initially was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton's, that by definition that meant Dumond was railroaded, and therefore should be released. The Arkansas parole board, after being pressured by Huckabee, released Dumond was released, who went on to rape and murder at least one, and possibly two more women.

If there had been exculpatory evidence, Huckabee's decision might have been understandable. But the fact is that Dumond was released from prison for only one reason -- because the woman he raped had the misfortune to be distantly related to the man Republicans hate most in the entire universe -- more than Fidel Castro, more than they did Saddam Hussein, more than they hate Osama bin Laden, more than they hate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And therefore that meant anyone who raped her was by definition innocent.

What does THAT say about Republicans' ability to reason?

It should be well-known by now that I have no great love for the Clintons. But the level of insanity that has arisen around them goes beyond political differences and enters the realm of the pathological. And clemency for Wayne Dumond is what happens when Republicans let their fear and loathing get in the way of rationality.

Wayne Dumond should be hung, bodily, around Huckabee's neck for the remainder of this campaign. Huckabee may counter with the notion that mercy is a Christian trait. But when mercy only extends to rapists, but when victims who are related to Bill Clinton can go fuck themselves, THAT lack of judgment is a disqualification for the presidency.

(UPDATE: Murray Waas has even more. No way Huckabee can weasel out of this one. And it's just another reason why not one of these schticks dreck Republicans is fit to occupy the White House.)

(AND ANOTHER UPDATE: The letters Mike Huckabee received from Wayne Dumond's victims -- the letters he didn't take into account while lobbying for Dumond's release because the victim for whose rape he was in prison was a relative of Bill Clinton's, are here.)