Huckabee's Land of a 1,000 Pardons

Mike Huckabee has gotten some unwanted attention this week after a man whose sentence he commuted went on a cop killing spree in Washington State. As Red State reminds us, Huckabee was a pardon and commutation machine during his days as Arkansas governor:

Back in 2008, a lot of people tried to paint Mike Huckabee as soft on crime. But, the guy is extremely likable and he makes sure you know he is a former preacher. So people tend to forgive him for his forgiving criminals their crimes.

Despite several attempts to drum up a Willie Horton for Huckabee in 2008, nothing happened. People glossed over the numbers.

With the Washington State police killings, people will probably pay attention in a different way now.

As Fournier noted at the time, while Mike Huckabee was Governor of Arkansas, he granted “1,033 pardons and commutations, including for 12 convicted murderers.”

To quote a different preacher, those chickens are now coming home to roost in inconvenient ways.

He might have been able to dodge the attention to all of this in 2008, but after the cop killings, I can guarantee that should Huckabee run again his opponents will be quick to remind voters of his record when it comes to dealing with criminals.