Uh Oh - Huckabee: Torture Not Ok, ... Except For Dogs?

Update: There is a very horrific version of the alleged crime here at an animal rights site linked to Kinky Friedman. It is an anonymous, faxed account purported to be from around the time of the incident.

Well, here's an unfortunate Christmas present for Mike Huckabee slated for December 24 in Newsweek. It's pretty ugly, perhaps even low ... unless it's true. The allegation is that Huckabee's son and another boy were thought to have hanged a dog - the defense was they were simply putting it down.

When animal rights groups requested an investigation from the state police, Huckabee is alleged to have pressured the director of the state police to bury it, later citing his resistance as part of the reasoning for his being fired. A former FBI chief in Arkansas vouches for the state police director.

... bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. But John Bailey, then the director of Arkansas's state police, tells NEWSWEEK that Governor Huckabee's chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor's request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee's Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer's intervention as improper and terminated the conversation. Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee's office and fired. "I've lost confidence in your ability to do your job," Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was "I couldn't get you to help me with my son when I had that problem," according to Bailey. "Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son," says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a "courageous" and "very solid" professional.

The details of the incident remain murky. The Animal Legal Defense Fund got an anonymous fax that summer alleging that David Huckabee and another youth had been involved in the hanging of a stray dog at the camp on July 11. A local animal-rights activist, Joyce Hillard, later contacted the camp director. Notes of Hillard's report to the defense fund read, "Boys confessed & were fired. Dir. is making excuses, saying dog was sic & boys were putting him out of his misery." (The director told NEWSWEEK only that a stray dog was "put down" and that the counselors were fired for violating the Scout credo to be "kind.") The father of the other counselor was quoted by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in August 1998 as saying that his son found the dog "hung over a limb and choking." David Huckabee did not respond to requests for comment. (In April of this year, he was arrested—and paid a fine—when he forgot to remove a loaded gun from his carry-on luggage at Little Rock airport.) His father told NEWSWEEK THAT his son did not engage in "intentional torture." "There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated." A campaign official says David "regrets" the incident and notes that he later made Eagle Scout.

Comments

[The Life of Amish]

the son of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

They must have heard him say "Jehovah"

[HTML Amish]

I guess html doesnt work here. I was trying to highlight the 'stoning' part.

Either way, Huck is running one freaky campaign. Its like a cross between Lone Wolf McQuade and House of a Thousand Corpses.

If the polls are right I guess Michael Vick can look forward to a Presidential pardon next Christmas.

[lambert strether]

I think Spiky pulled his punches. check it out.

[herzkit nrtcwdvx]

nsmc ixzcsnqr fjpbwomix funaw kuclt pxlujyzf snuoabem

[dorvjgl djkhzawuc]

ucsmnyozr uvhsaxbf daoet ejnmsdzr gepzd lzdp bwnzfaxih http://www.jofmdghaq.hdmjub.com