Good night, Mike

From the New York Times today, regarding the role of former Arkansas governor and current Fox Newsie Mike Huckabee in the slaughter of four Washington police officers over the weekend:

Trying to explain how such a man could be on the streets, despite five felony convictions in Arkansas that should have kept him locked up for life, Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said, “Some people have to answer to that.”

At the top of that list is Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and current host at Fox News. Huckabee granted Clemmons early release nine years ago, against the objections of prosecutors and victims.

If this case does not sink the presidential aspirations of Huckabee, a leading Republican candidate, it should. By the standards that Republicans launched almost 20 years ago, Huckabee will be Willie Hortonized. But this case also shows, as with an earlier episode in Arkansas, that Huckabee’s judgment is seriously flawed.

Agreed.  I always thought Huckabee was disingenuous, irritating and probably incompetent, and as with so many politicians, Sarah Palin chief among them, I was and am mystified as to how any voter could be taken in by such a person. 

Alas, no more: this should seal the deal on Huckabee’s political future. 

Of course, the real story here isn’t the future of a hack politician from Arkansas, the real story is the fact that four good men are now dead:

The officers who were killed were Tina Griswold, 40; Ronald Owens, 37; Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; and Greg Richards, 42. All left behind children and families, and they were mourned at makeshift memorials at the Lakewood Police Department, at a church vigil in Tacoma and on various Web sites, including Facebook.

“We’re a young department,” Chief Bret Farrar said at a news conference on Monday. “We put this department together in 2004. The four we lost yesterday were original members of the department. They were good people, they were great officers, and we will all miss them very much.”