An overused talking point from right wing women is: "Where are the feminists...?"
Whenever something happens and they think liberal women should step in.
Since I'm no feminist (labels make me nervous) I couldn't help them. But the same
question in reverse occurred to me this weekend, watching mainstream media cover Mike Huckabee's campaign. Where are the conservatives (denouncing him) for all the
bizarre events surrounding his time in the Arkansas governor's mansion?
Instead, Monday morning media reports focused on former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee's increased
popularity among Republican Iowa caucus-goers and his showing two nights ago at the annual Reagan Dinner in Iowa:
Three of the top-tier Republican presidential candidates Rudy
Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain failed to show at the seventh annual
Reagan Dinner in Iowa Saturday night, unwisely ceding the floor to the six
remaining GOP hopefuls.
Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson took advantage of the absences...
Rising in the Iowa polls, Huckabee used his time on the stage to assure the
crowd against one of his biggest criticisms by some in this electorate: that he
couldn't beat Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the general election.- Foxnews.com
But the more we learn about Gov. Huckabee, the more apparent it becomes the Hillary Clinton camp must be salivating at the prospect of facing him in the general election. Why?
Several stories are swirling around Huckabee which raise serious
questions about his judgement and ethics. The first is Huckabee's personal
Willy Horton story. Several years ago, for reasons that are still unclear,
Huckabee intervened in the case of a convicted rapist named Wayne Dumond.
After Dumond made parole, he went on to rape again. The next time, he also
murdered his victim:
...the Times new reporting shows the extent to which Huckabee and a
key aide were involved in the process to win Dumonds release.
It was a process marked by deviation from accepted parole practice and direct
personal lobbying by the governor, in an apparently illegal
and unrecorded closed-door meeting with the parole board (the informal name by
which the Post Prison Transfer Board is known).[Read the full story here.]
Why Huckabee is not only still standing --- but running strong ---- is
also unclear. Other questions surrounding his tenure are even more puzzling.
One is why, earlier this year as Gov. Huckabee was leaving office, he
apparently ordered the destruction of more than 100 computers in the
governor's office:
As you'll remember, in early January 2007, as his tenure as governor
ran out, Huckabee ordered his staff to electronically wipe and then crush the
hard drives of almost 100 laptop and desktop computers in the governor's office
(soon after taking office, incoming governor Mike Beebe had to allocate
$335,000 from his operating fund to buy new hard drives and computers to
replace those crushed by his successor). At the time, Huckabee said that the
decision to crush the hard drives was made in order to protect the
privacy of those who had personal information on the drives. Critics, however,
recalled that early in Huckabee's term as governor, documents, e-mails and
memos stored on hard drives just like the ones that were destroyed formed the
basis of embarrassing stories about Huckabee, including a 1998 story in the
Arkansas Times detailing how Huckabee and his family were
using the $60,000-a-year Governor's Mansion fund as their personal piggy bank.[Read the full story here].
Destroying records? Misusing Mansion funds? Helping a convicted
rapist? Would Sen. Clinton still be a viable candidate if she faced such
reports? Would Rudy Giuliani? Would Sen. McCain? Methinks not.