Parole and Police killings

I’m generally one to understand the complexities of the decision to allow parole. It shouldn’t be used for cheap political shots. So I would be in favor of reserving judgment on Mike Huckabee’s decision to allow out on parole the guy (serving 108 years for five felonies) who recently killed four police officers.

But this article makes an interesting point:

Huckabee says this “horrible and tragic event” should not be politicized. But it is his party that has honed such attacks into a dark art. This is a prison of their making, and they wasted little time getting back to it, even now that the offender is one of their own . Michelle Malkin’s Web site Monday showed a picture of Clemmons, with a tag line: “Huckabee’s Willie Horton II.”

Back in 1988, when it came to light that Willie Horton committed fresh crimes while out on a weekend furlough program backed by then-Gov. Mike Dukakis of Massachusetts, Republicans used it to help destroy Dukakis the presidential candidate. It may even have cost him the election.

“The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it,” said a gleeful Roger Ailes, then a media consultant to Republicans.

Ailes now runs Fox News. If they decide to hold the politician accountable for early release of a violent felon linked now to a death of four police officers, they know where to find him – in studio, as a Fox News host.

On this topic Bill O’Reilly called Huckabee a “stand-up guy”. Sure, you work for the same (fair and balanced) network…