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Last post before Christmas

Since this will be my last post until after Christmas, I thought I'd do a little philosophizin' and post some things from Seneca. "After Christmas?", I hear you ask. Yep. I'm leaving work in a little over an hour, and I'll be off all next week. I'll be back on the 23rd, but that's going to be a catch-up day. I'll have a whole week of stuff to go over and (probably) correct, then start getting ready for that week as well. I'll have to work all day Sunday and Monday (although we usually get off early on the 24th), and then relax at home on the 25th. So yeah, not gonna be posting until after Christmas. Maybe late Monday, but I wouldn't count on it.

I've got a couple of things that I'm going to need to do next week, as well. I need to write Roxana a letter, but something is wrong with my CD writer on my old computer, and the one on this computer is still messed up from when I accidently dropped it. It works for a while, then it seems like the driver for it just disappears, so I have to reinstall it and run a repair task for iTunes, then do a reboot. So I lose about an hour just doing that. Lately, even that hasn't been helping; I have to run it quite a few times before it takes. But back to my point.

I was going to do some philosophizin' and post some quotes from Seneca, but I'm going to do something a little different this time around. Lonnie may get mad at me, but I'm going to risk it. Lately, he's been getting his fisking of Gene to me later and later, sometimes even on Tuesday or even Wednesday, a whole week later. Since he's been so late getting his weekly fisking of Gene Lyons to me, maybe this will give him a chance to catch up. He's probably still recovering from those nasty bites on his face and arms from his brutal fisking of Gene's last column.

Anyway, I'm going to post Gene's whole column. Why? Because the impossible has occurred; I agree with almost everything that he's written about in this column. (That sound you just heard was Lonnie fainting dead away.) I'll only interject a few times, to show where Gene has facts wrong. It just wouldn't be a Gene Lyons column without some facts being wrong.

There is a certain irony in titling your column

There’s more to character than being charming

Unfortunately, that irony is lost on Gene. Unintentional irony: perhaps the purest form of irony. Anyway, on to his column. As always, Gene is in blue, my (few) comments will be in black.

Gene Lyons

Pundits and TV anchorcreatures love pronouncing about politicians’ “character,” when all they’re really talking about is personality. Hence glib, superficially charming candidates invariably win plaudits in the reality-TV epics we call presidential elections. This year’s GOP Prince Charming is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. When it comes to ingratiating himself, few surpass the one-time Baptist preacher. He’s witty, he’s warm, and doggone it, people like him. Character consists of something deeper. *Oh, if only you could have spouted that during 1991, Gene. Maybe we wouldn't have had Clinton as President during that time. That’s why it’s important to know the truth about Wayne DuMond, the serial rapist and murderer Huckabee freed from the Arkansas penitentiary to kill again. Unfortunately, that’s the last thing you’ll hear from the candidate himself.

DuMond was a cunning con-man, a predatory psychopath adept at playing victim. A naïve and inexperienced Huckabee went for it, hook, line and sinker. So did others for whom professional skepticism is supposed to be a job requirement. In springing DuMond, the Arkansas Republican courted praise from the Clinton-hating right-wing press, whose responsibility for the murder the ex-con committed after his release shouldn’t be overlooked. *Uh, I don't know if Gene means Huckabee's responsibility or the "Clinton-hating right wing press's responsibility. Isn't journalism school and/or editors supposed to catch stuff like this?

Here’s the backstory: in 1985, DuMond, a handyman with a long rap sheet, kidnapped 17-year-old Forrest City, Ar., cheerleader Ashley Stevens and raped her at knifepoint. DuMond’s trademark MO was cutting off his victims’ brassieres with a hunting knife, vowing to murder them if they told.

Stevens not only reported the crime, she later recognized the newly cleanshaven perp on the street, and agreed to testify.

While free on bond, DuMond was found castrated on the floor of their remote mobile home by his children, an empty bottle of Jack Daniels nearby and his own bloody footprints everywhere. DuMond’s blood alcohol level was 2.8, falling-down drunk. His wife asked police if he’d mutilated himself. Investigators suspected he had. It’s an uncommon, but not unknown, sympathy ploy. No evidence of the masked intruders DuMond claimed gelded him ever emerged.

Two things made the case notorious. In a touch of Arkansas gothic, the St. Francis County Sheriff (who’d played no role in the rape investigation ) exhibited DuMond’s testicles in a jar. Second, although her identity wasn’t initially disclosed, young Stevens was a distant cousin of then-Gov. Bill Clinton.

After Clinton became president, Du-Mond portrayed himself as an innocent victim of the satanic “Clinton machine.” Soft-headed conspiracy theorists who circulated “Clinton death lists” found the notion irresistible.

New York Post columnist and “Current Affairs” correspondent Steve Dunleavy churned out articles of near-hallucinatory inaccuracy championing DuMond’s cause. He portrayed DuMond as a blameless Vietnam vet with no criminal history. In fact, DuMond avoided prison in Oklahoma by testifying against men tried and convicted of beating a man to death with a claw hammer. He’d been convicted of second degree assault in Oregon, and charged with but not tried for a previous rape in Arkansas.

Dunleavy claimed DNA evidence exonerated DuMond, but that a vengeful Clinton prevented his release. Both were categorically false. No DNA evidence existed; Clinton had recused.

DuMond became a right-wing cause célèbre. One Guy Reel wrote a book entitled “Unequal Justice,” parroting the same bogus claims. Most significantly, Jay Cole, a Fayetteville, Ar., Baptist pastor and pal of Huckabee’s, bought into the delusion.

No sooner had Huckabee become governor after Kenneth Starr’s conviction of his Democratic predecessor, Jim Guy Tucker, * I can't resist it: When did that happen, Gene? Oh, during the Whitewater investigation? Oh, and what did Jim Guy Tucker get busted for? For fraud? With Jim and Susan McDougal? Well, isn't that interesting? And Gene, didn't you call Whitewater a "witch hunt"? Hmm. How interesting. than Huckabee began talking about commuting the presumptively innocent DuMond’s sentence. He clearly expected to be congratulated. Instead, Prosecutor Fletcher Long erupted. How could the governor even think of doing that without reading the trial transcript ?

Abandoning her anonymity, Ashley Stevens invaded Huckabee’s personal space: “This is how close I was to Wayne DuMond,” she said. “I will never forget his face. And now I don’t want you ever to forget my face.” Professed victims wrote agonized letters begging Huckabee to desist.

Today, Huckabee alibis that nobody could have predicted DuMond’s Missouri crimes. Many people did. Even this column warned *Lonnie wrote a line in last week's fisking that's stuck in my mind. Let me quote him, "Obviousness so obvious that even Gene Lyons gets it. That's obviousness, baby!" that: “Rape’s not a crime of passion; it’s a crime of rage. Violent sex offenders, innumerable case studies show, keep at it until something stops them. If Huckabee doesn’t understand that, he’s got no business getting involved.” Instead of backing off, Huckabee got tricky. He held an improper closed-door meeting with the parole board, several of whom say they’d felt pressured. Last week, Huckabee’s then-chief counsel, Olan “Butch” Reeves, basically seconded their claims. After the board voted to parole DuMond to Missouri, Huckabee wrote a “Dear Wayne” letter stressing “my desire... that you be released from prison” —the proverbial smoking gun he can’t now rationalize or whine away. Angry Missouri cops say DuMond’s victim’s severed bra straps were like a calling card. They found his DNA under her fingernails. Huckabee’s latest book claims that DuMond died in prison before coming to trial. In fact, he was convicted of murdering Carol Sue Shields on Nov. 12, 2003, and at the time of his death was a leading suspect in the murder of a second Missouri woman. You’d think Huckabee might have noticed.

Uh, Gene? Your claim that "Huckabee’s latest book claims that DuMond died in prison before coming to trial" is not contradictory with your next sentence, "In fact, he was convicted of murdering Carol Sue Shields on Nov. 12, 2003, and at the time of his death was a leading suspect in the murder of a second Missouri woman."

But aside of those factual blunders that I've pointed out, Gene has written a column that I can generally agree with. If Gene has done his usual bang-up job of researching, however, I reserve the right to change my opinion on it.

Althought this is not the primary reason I won't vote for Huckabee, this is still a pretty good reason. If he does win the Republican nomination for either President or Vice-President, I'm going to have to look long and hard at his running mate before I decide to vote or not. I must confess, the particulars of the DuMond case have escaped me, so I can't verify Gene's version here. I'll have to do some research into the matter.

But not until I get back from vacation.

Have a Merry Christmas!