I’ve been digging into this controversy over Huckabee and the rapist Dumond. And when you break it down, what they seem to be arguing over amounts to an almost ridiculous distinction — one that doesn’t put Huckabee in a very good light.
If I’m understanding this right, Huckabee’s accusers are saying that he met with the parole board and tried to persuade them to parole Dumond. To which, the Huckabee people respond, no, they were trying to persuade Huckabee not to commute Dumond’s sentence.
I must confess that what I’m saying here sounds so ridiculous that many of you are probably wondering whether the Huckabee camp could actually have said this or whether I’m just kidding around. But I’m not. Here’s the passage from Team Huck’s new memo …
It is this October â96 meeting which is now the focus of attention. One of the Board members, Charles Chastain, is now alleging publicly that the Governor used that meeting to pressure the Board to grant DuMond parole.
In fact, just the opposite is true: Mr. Chastain attempted to dissuade Governor Huckabee from his intent to grant clemency to DuMond.
âThey are saying that the Governor was trying to persuade them to grant parole,â said Reeves, âit was the other way around, they were trying to persuade him not to grant clemency.â
Just the opposite is true!
Now, commutation to time served and parole wouldn’t have been exactly the same thing — in the later case he’d still be under parole supervision. But it’s a pretty fine distinction for a serial rapist. And just from a common sense point of view the difference between the two descriptions of the conversation seems so minor that I could easily imagine both sides honestly recollecting the same conversation in these two different ways.
What seems not to be in dispute is that Huckabee went in to the meeting having bought into the anti-Clinton whackjob theory that serial rapist Dumond was a victim of Clinton justice and was unjustly imprisoned. The parole board apparently thought otherwise.
Again, everyone seems to agree to that. Now why the parole board did eventually parole Dumond I can’t say. Pressure from Huckabee seems the likeliest explanation. But I’d think the parole board members still bear a lot of responsibility.
But again, to the extent this is a political issue today about Huckabee’s judgment, their defense seems pretty hard to distinguish from the charge.
