Conservative, Iowa talk-show host and Mike Huckabee-fan, Steve Deace, writes a lengthy, but nuanced essay on what Huck supporters can take from the clemency fall-out.
It's admirable in its daring.
Before hitting Huck gently but firmly, he notes that Palin and Romney supporters are often the victim of the cult of personality, and God forbid Huckabee fans succumb to the same blind devotion.
The exact same people who said nothing while Palin put a Planned Parenthood official on the state supreme court where she could kill babies from the bench with little difficulty, or still haven’t come clean about Romney’s far left record in Massachusetts, now suddenly can’t wait to expose Huckabee’s poor judgment and the tragedy that at least partially resulted from it.
That Deace dismisses the temptation to call quitting a job "progressing" the state forward makes it all the more refreshing.
Highlight.
Those of us that supported Huckabee, beginning with myself, should probably stop projecting our hopes for revival or cultural renewal upon him and his political future since he’s just a man and not Jesus. We should probably admit to ourselves that we made him out to be more than he really was because we were scared for our country, our families, our political party, or all of the above. We should probably admit that we willingly chose to overlook or ignore certain things we didn’t want to be true or didn’t want to know because we saw in Huckabee a man with a heart for God, and we’re desperate for that kind of leadership nowadays. And then we should probably recognize that by doing so we actually hurt our brother’s chances of being the Godly leader we’ve been praying for and didn’t help him get there, because instead of ironing sharpening iron as we become Christ-like we became followers of a man. A Godly man, but a man nonetheless, and with being a man comes all the temptations and shortcomings every other man has to endure and overcome.
.... I believe Huckabee’s “prisoner problem” is the result of a well-intentioned but misguided theology that says there is some good in human nature, and because of that a human being – even a hardened criminal – can “choose” to be good if given the chance. Thus, a prisoner expresses remorse, maybe even “asks Jesus into his heart” while incarcerated, and we let him go because everyone deserves a second chance.
The problem is that Biblically that is not the role of the state, not to mention the fact it’s a theological error. The state exists to punish evil-doers, which the Seattle killer commuted by Huckabee clearly is, and not to redeem them.
.... Therefore, as Arkansas governor Huckabee’s first job wasn’t to be a minister of the Gospel, but a minister of justice. It’s not the governor’s job to hand out second chances, that’s the pastor’s. It’s the governor’s job to make sure those that blew their first chance don’t have another chance to hurt more people and property before they’ve been adequately punished and are sufficiently repentant.
Huckabee blurred the ministerial lines here, and a tragedy happened because of it. His intentions were good, but so are the intentions of most liberals that engage in the same thinking with American taxpayer money.
