Scandal Dumond

Jill from Brilliant At Breakfast has the ultimate explanation of the Wayne Dumond situation at The Right's Field. This looks absolutely coordinated. As soon as Huckabee started to become a phenomenon, all of a sudden the media gets interested in the Wayne Dumond story. This is oppo research at its finest. But the facts of that case really aren't in dispute.

In 1988, the campaign of George H.W. Bush ran this ad against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. The ad worked, and Dukakis’ reputation as “soft on crime” never recovered.

But with Huckabee, you have a convicted rapist not just released for weekend furloughs, but outright released, and for only one reason: because wingnuts insisted that because the woman Dumond raped initially was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton’s, that by definition that meant Dumond was railroaded, and therefore should be released. The Arkansas parole board, after being pressured by Huckabee, released Dumond [...], who went on to rape and murder at least one, and possibly two more women.

If there had been exculpatory evidence, Huckabee’s decision might have been understandable. But the fact is that Dumond was released from prison for only one reason — because the woman he raped had the misfortune to be distantly related to the man Republicans hate most in the entire universe — more than Fidel Castro, more than they did Saddam Hussein, more than they hate Osama bin Laden, more than they hate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And therefore that meant anyone who raped her was by definition innocent.

The wingnuts who pushed for Dumond's release were CONVINCED that Bill Clinton was so powerful that he had relatives pretend to be raped to railroad people into jail. That's the craziness of the Clinton years. And Huckabee bought it completely, so this is rebounding back on him.