They're not laughing with our governor
____Gov. Huckabee isn't laughing out loud anymore when it comes to the touchy subject of clemencies.
____ Until last week, Huckabee and his staff thought it was pretty funny when a prosecutor criticized one of the governor's all too frequent clemencies. It was nobody's business but Mike's.
____ But after a huge public outcry – and, we understand, pressure from the Bush-Cheney campaign to cool it on the commutations, at least until after the elections – the governor has issued a half-hearted apology for having been less than candid about all those controversial clemencies for friends and for friends of friends.
____ Although he threw a few punches at prosecutors who criticized him publicly, he did say in his statement, sort of, that he was sorry and he would better explain his clemencies in the future.
____For eight years, Huckabee would not tell the people of Arkansas why he was reducing the sentences of convicted felons.
____ "No comment," sniffed his spokesmen.
____ It was none of our business.
____ When it comes to clemencies, he now says "crime victims, their families, the law-enforcement community and citizens in general deserve a more detailed explanation."
____ The statement came about eight years too late, and it's typical Huckabee: Self-pitying, misleading and full of hot air.
____ "I want to do my best to explain this sometimes complex process and how I've carried it out in my eight years as governor," his statement went on.
____ What took you so long, Mike?
____ "I understand the pain crime victims and their families have endured," Huckabee claims, but you wouldn't have guessed it from his sorry record.
____ He wouldn't meet with victims' families and didn't bother telling them about pending clemencies. After he was forced to withdraw his offer of clemency to Glen Green – the former Air Force sergeant who beat his own pregnant wife, then brutally murdered a teenager and dumped her body into the Twin Prairie Bayou – Huckabee pretty much admitted he knew nothing about the case. As is his custom, he had listened to a fellow preacher who pushed for Green's release knowing about as much about the killing as the governor did.
____ Having alienated prosecutors in his own party, coupled with public anger, the governor has changed his mind about two clemencies for two other killers. The public and the media weren't the only ones that had turned against him: Even his Post-Prison Transfer Board had unanimously voted against pardoning Green.
____ Until his dramatic turnabout, he had kept the public in the dark when he was considering clemencies. When he let criminals out of prison, he wouldn't explain why. Huckabee had reasoned, according to his statement, that "if a governor explained his motivation in detail, other inmates would tailor the applications along those lines."
____ Huckabee may not have realized it, but every prisoner knew how to get on the governor's good side. Call it Huckabee's religion test. It's a sure ticket to freedom: Tell him you've found religion.
____ After Huckabee announced Green's clemency, Lonoke County Prosecutor Lona McCastlain located the relatives of the woman he had killed and they were furious. McCastlain told the governor he was making a terrible mistake and he backed down.
____ He withdrew two other clemencies but two other nasty killers went free last month.
____ He praised McCastlain's professionalism, presumably because she's a Republican, but he still hurled insults at prosecutors who happen to be Democrats. If this has turned into a partisan issue, Huckabee has no one to thank but himself.
____ But he still has plenty of explaining to do: Why did he run up a record-setting number of commutations and clemencies – he would have gone well above 1,000, and perhaps twice that, if we hadn't forced his hand.
____ Why had he not used commutations more judiciously? As the Leader has pointed out, he granted more commutations than his three previous predecessors combined. Did he think insulting or ignoring his critics would silence them and make the problem go away?
____ This is how he operated in the past: He had his staff write insulting letters to his critics. "The governor read you (sic) letter and laughed out loud," wrote a scoundrel named Cory Cox, a Huckabee legal adviser, by way of a reply to Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld, who opposed clemency for yet another vicious killer Huckabee took a liking to.

After weeks of negative publicity, Gov. Huckabee and his staff
have stopped laughing at their critics and changed course on their
controversial clemancies.

____ "He wanted me to respond to you. I wish you success as you cut down on your caffeine consumption," Cox signed off mindlessly.
____ But even as Huckabee and his staff gave the public the proverbial finger, Herzfeld went to court and had the clemency overturned, and prosecutors from both parties thought the governor was out of control.
____ Huckabee's announcement last week promising to reform the commutation process basically adopts Herzfeld's proposals that will go before the Legislature for action next year.
____ There were plenty of signs of trouble for Huckabee: Victims' families were outraged, and the media finally took up their cause.
____ All of a sudden, political reality whacked Huckabee in the head, and he was taught a simple civics lesson: Public opinion is more powerful than any one person, especially a lameduck governor who views the public with contempt.
____ But then his record caught up with him: For a while, people gave him the benefit of the doubt as he freed one murderer, then another, and still more after that.
____ Then he took up the cause of a sociopath named Wayne DuMond and pushed for the rapist's early release, which made it possible for him to kill two women in Missouri.
____ More questionable commutations followed, including a free pass for a habitual drunk driver serving a six-year sentence. A wealthy political donor, the felon went free after six months.
____ v Clemencies and commutations for the rich and the well-connected. That's the Huckabee legacy.
____ When the history of his administration is written, it will include pictures of victims' families holding up portraits of their loved ones who were murdered.
____ We haven't seen photos of Wayne DuMond's victims, but they'll turn up one of these days, and we'll send Huckabee a whole gallery of photos that he can display at the Governor's Mansion or in his office at the Capitol.