Since the first wave of bad press over Mike Huckabee's decision to commute Maurice Clemmons roiled the blogosphere, it seems there's been a pretty effective push-back at defending him ("pretty effective", b/c a poll out tomorrow will show Huck's numbers haven't slipped).
To date, Huckabee's defenders have emerged from every ideological corner.
Now, Michael Gerson, a former senior policy advsior to George W. Bush, has penned his support for Huckabee in a Washington Post op-ed.
During a decade as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee commuted 163 sentences, a pace greater than that of most governors. Some of Huckabee's commutations turned out to be wise. This one had a terrible human cost. In hindsight, the families of the dead have every right to their anger.
But decisions of this type are not made in hindsight. It is not easy to discern whether a young burglar, given another chance, will become a model citizen or a psychotic killer. Yet governors, parole boards and prosecutors are forced to make such impossible judgments regularly when considering clemency, parole and plea bargains. It would be simple always to err on the side of harshness, endlessly filling prisons to minimize risk. But harshness without discretion is not practical and, in Hamilton's view, not just. Is there really no circumstance in which the strictest application of the law is "too sanguinary and cruel"?
Some professions involve decisions about life and death. When treatment by a doctor results in death and suffering -- as treatments sometimes do -- we ask whether the initial choices were reasonable or negligent. The standard applied to governors making clemency decisions should be the same. Huckabee's choice allowed a tragedy. But that does not make it unreasonable.
