Tuesday, December 01, 2009

O'reilly lets Huckabee off the hook, demonizes judges

Bill O'Reilly invited "Fox News Analyst" Mike Huckabee onto Da Factor to let him push back against the growing scandal over his having granted clemency in Arkansas to the man suspected of killing four police officers in Washington state.



O'Reilly began the segment by listing two recent offenses Maurice Clemmons was accused of.

    O'RIELLY: "The man had been charged with assaulting a police officer in May. In July, he was charged with raping and molesting a 12-year old female girl, a relative. But, just a week ago, this guy was released on fifteen-thousand dollars bail, and incredibly low number for the kinds of crimes he is accused of. Altogether, he had a total of eight felony charges pending against him, but Judge John McCarthy set the bail and Judge Thomas Felnagle signed off on the bail amount and let him out!

    We contacted the judges, but they did not return our phone calls, which is not very smart. They will be held accountable."
Mr. Accountability then mentioned, oh by the way, that Clemmons had been incarcerated at one time in some called Arkansas, where some guy named Mike Huckabee was governor. He introduced Huckabee, thanked him for being a stand-up guy, and asked for an explanation.

    HUCKABEE: Well, Bill, first of all, I think the uh, the tragedy of this, if I could have known nine years ago this guy was capable of something of this magnitude, obviously, I would never have granted the commutation. It's sickening. The two people in this country that I value the most are soldiers and police officers because they're the only thing standing between our freedom and total anarchy.


Right, if only it were possible to tell the future! How many problems could be avoided? And why not hide behind The Troops while you're at it? It worked for Bush.

Huckabee wasted no time blaming the Arkansas parole board for paroling Clemmons after the then-governor commuted the 108-year sentence down to 47, which made him eligible.

He also made the perfectly reasonable case that the original 108-year sentence, issued when Clemmons was 17, was excessive.

Huckabee said he was heartbroken over the deaths of the four police officers, at which point O'Reilly cut him off to deliver absolution.

    O'REILLY: Well, it's not your fault, governor. I mean, look, you got 1,200 of these cases a year, you gotta look at 'em. I'm not saying it's your fault. I don't think anybody watching thinks it's your fault.

    But the judges in Washington state, come on. I mean, this guy moves from your state, Arkansas, to Washington state, and then he racks up eight felony charges. Eight felonies, including the rape of a 12-year old.

    [CROSS TALK]

    These clowns, these judges, give him a $15,000 walk, which he makes through a bail bondsman. And, I mean, and then they don't even return our calls to say, like you are right now, 'here's why we did it!'"
The truth is that the murders of those four police officers is not Mike Huckabee's fault any more than the murder that Willie Horton committed on furlough was the fault of Michael Dukakis. Good luck getting any conservative to acknowledge that, by the way.

But O'Reilly is obviously incapable of grasping the enormous disconnect between his commonsense declaration of Huckabee's lack of culpability and his pathological need to blame somebody other than Clemmons for his alleged crimes. And on top of that, the judges in the case had the nerve not to return O'Reilly's calls.

So, the judges get the blame.

Off with their heads!

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