Will Maurice Clemmons Be Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton?

ABCNews.com:

Any political ambitions of former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee could be hurt by his role in freeing Maurice Clemmons, the gunman suspected in the execution murders of four police officers in Washington State -- especially since Clemmons would not be the first criminal Huckabee helped to free who later committed murder.

Clemmons was serving 95 years when Huckabee, then governor of Arkansas, commuted his sentence in 2000. Clemmons is now being sought in the murders of four Lakewood, Wash. police officers, who were ambushed and shot in a coffee shop Sunday morning.

Four years earlier, Huckabee also pushed for the parole of rapist Wayne Dumond despite chilling testimonies from victims and their relatives that he was a dangerous criminal who would strike again. Ashley Stevens, a 17-year-old cheerleader when Dumond raped her, told ABC News in 2007 that 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."

First of all, who knew Mike Huckabee was Mr. Rogers on crime (well apparently, Malkin did and so did quite a few others)? And this doesn't look like a case of typical Far-Right paranoia, as from all accounts Maurice Clemmons had no business being on the streets. Apparently as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee granted a lot of undeserved pardons as well executive clemency's to felons with long rap sheets, including Clemmons. These acts of freedom caused plenty of controversy during Huckabee's years as Governor. Yet, Huckabee would often point fingers at supposedly inept prosecutors or inject religion into his pardons, all the time having little knowledge of the case, depending on the knowledge of his assistants instead. Maurice Clemmons has a rap sheet littered with crimes ranging from burglary to domestic violence to possibly raping a child. He was granted clemency by then Arkansas Gov. Huckabee, in 2000, after Clemmons stated he had turned his life around in prison upon serving 11 years in an Arkansas prison on various felony counts including severe violence. Huckabee commuted Clemmons sentence and made him immediately eligible for parole.

Witnesses are saying that Clemmons, who had just gotten into a couple of altercations with cops in recent days, was carrying around a grudge against police before he allegedly shot and killed 4 police officers. A massive manhunt for Clemmons is still underway, tho some reports are saying that he may be wounded or dead from a gunshot suffered from the ambush. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee is on the defense....bigtime, and probably will be for quite awhile as right now he's not looking good at all.