Let's see how Mike Huckabee stands up to scrutiny. The early going is being tough for him. At an on-the-record press talk last night in Des Moines, he said the following:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/...
My colleague David Paul Kuhn attended an on-the-record dinner with Mike Huckabee and a group of reporters tonight in Des Moines.The transcript speaks for itself:
Kuhn: I don't know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to take a look at the NIE report that came out yesterday ...
Huckabee: I'm sorry?
Kuhn: The NIE report, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Have you been briefed or been able to take a look at it -
Huckabee: No.
Kuhn: Have you heard of the finding?
Huckabee: No.
Kuhn then summarized the NIE finding that Iran had stopped work on a clandestine nuclear program four years ago and asked if it "adjusts your view on Iran in any sense."
Kuhn: What is your concern on Iran as of now?
Huckabee: I've a serious concern if they were to be able to weaponize nuclear material, and I think we all should, mainly because the statements of Ahmadinejad are certainly not conducive to a peaceful purpose for his having it and the fear that he would in fact weaponize it and use it. (He pauses and thinks) I don't know where the intelligence is coming from that says they have suspended the program or how credible that is versus the view that they actually are expanding it. ... And I've heard, the last two weeks, supposed reports that they are accelerating it and it could be having a reactor in a much shorter period of time than originally been thought.
But there's more . . .
Huckabee's role in pardoning the guy who raped a young cheerleader, then molested and killed a woman after his parole, is exposing a side of Huckabee that contradicts his squeaky clean minister image. CBS and ABC are now running with the story.
John Aravosis sums up the whole thing succinctly: See http://www.americablog.com/200... and
http://www.americablog.com/200...
Huckabee basically helped secure the guy's release because the convict had raped a distant relative of Bill Clinton - and being a distant relative of Bill Clinton, the right-wing attack machine said the woman who was raped wasn't credible (even though the guy was convicted), and they demanded that the rapist be set free because, after all, he only raped a Clinton. Well, it seems that Governor Huckabee agreed. He set the rapist free, and then the guy molested and murdered another woman. But even better? Huckabee now denies that he had anything to do with the release of the rapist/murderer. Funny, then why did Huckabee meet with the parole board on behalf of the rapist/murderer?
The CBS story is here -- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories... The ABC story is here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl...
[update: ABC story on Good Morning America here]
Huckabee has made a mistake trying to cover up his participation in the parole, because the Arkansas press was all over that issue.
Within a year of Dumond's release, he was accused of raping and murdering two more women. He was convicted of raping and murdering one of the women and returned to jail, where he died in 2005.Huckabee now says he wished he "knew more" about the killer's dangerous tendencies before he advocated his release. But new documents published by the Huffington Post web site show he did - or should have.
Documentation of Dumond's dangerousness - including graphic, emotional letters from his alleged victims and their family members - was in Huckabee's gubernatorial files at the time he was advocating Dumond's release, the site reports.
This is the one that got me:
Huckabee even met with one victim, Ashley Stevens, whose rape had put Dumond behind bars in 1985.Stevens said she put her face inches from Huckabee's and said, "this is how close I was to Wayne Dumond, and I will never forget his face, and you will never forget mine. He's the one that raped me."
Shortly afterward, in a closed-door session with the state parole board, Huckabee urged them to recommend Dumond be freed, according to the one member who voted against the then-governor.
Kind of puts a new face on the amiable Huckabee?