Conservative columnist Ross Douthat warns against comparing Willie Horton to Maurice Clemmons.
There are superficial resemblances, much cited in the last two weeks, between the Horton case and the tragic parole of Maurice Clemmons. But the political context is completely different. The age of furloughs is long gone. For a generation now, conservatives, not Dukakis-style liberals, have been making policy on crime. They’ve built more prisons, imposed harsher sentences and locked up as many lawbreakers as possible.
He claims that while conservative policies have done much to help reduce crime, the secondary effects are somewhat troubling -- overcrowded prisons, rape within them, significant absences in the community.
Solving both problems (crime and those secondary effects) involves a more "sophisticated crime-fighting approach"-- something that's going to have to split the middle and require more care.
.... the case of Maurice Clemmons may cast a long shadow over conservative politics, frightening politicians away from even the most sensible reforms — lest they wake up to a tragedy, and find themselves assigned the blame.
It's notable that Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney have all played up their tough guy/gal creds in the wake of the Clemmons affair (T-Paw here, Romney here, Palin here).
