I never heard this story prior to Huckabee’s polls picking up a few months ago, so maybe you haven’t either.

Republican partisans like to talk about “Bush Derangement Syndrome“, where folks like me blame Bush for all the world’s ills. It’s a false charge, and a lazy attack on the credibility of critics of the Bush administration.

Less discussed, though much more prevalent and institutionalized is Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Almost all of the Republican candidates for president suffer from it, and the media suffered from it (and, in some cases, still does) during the 90s. Irrational hatred and “paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of” the Clintons, to paraphrase the CDS sufferer Charles Krauthammer.

The story I mentioned is the story of Wayne Dumond. Here’s a rundown from Murray Waas:

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.

While on the campaign trail, Huckabee has claimed that he supported the 1999 release of Wayne Dumond because, at the time, he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public. Thanks to Huckabee’s intervention, conducted in concert with a right-wing tabloid campaign on Dumond’s behalf, Dumond was let out of prison 25 years before his sentence would have ended.

…

In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. The activists claimed that Dumond’s initial imprisonment and various other travails were due to the fact that Ashley Stevens, the high school cheerleader he had raped, was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.

The case for Dumond’s innocence was championed in Arkansas by Jay Cole, a Baptist minister and radio host who was a close friend of the Huckabee family. It also became a cause for New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy, who repeatedly argued for Dumond’s release, calling his conviction “a travesty of justice.” On Sept. 21, 1999, Dunleavy wrote a column headlined “Clinton’s Biggest Crime - Left Innocent Man In Jail For 14 Years”

…

After Dumond’s release from prison in September 1999, he moved to Smithville, Missouri, where he raped and suffocated to death a 39-year-old woman named Carol Sue Shields. Dumond was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for that rape and murder.

But Dumond’s arrest for those crimes in June 2001 came too late for 23-year-old Sara Andrasek of Platte County, Missouri. Dumond allegedly raped and murdered her just one day before his arrest for raping and murdering Shields. Prior to the attack, Andrasek and her husband had learned that she was pregnant with their first child.

Read the rest. This story is outrageous in ways that even I can’t believe. These people hate Bill Clinton with a passion that is beyond measure. Two women paid for this with their lives. Mike Huckabee should be ashamed and should drop out of the race. This is partisanship taken so far that he let a rapist go in the face of numerous letters from the rapist’s victims, from the parents of that Clinton distant cousin, and from law enforcement.

We don’t need that in the White House.

Read the whole article. The story is unbelievable. These people don’t care about the law, they care about Republicans winning elections. They are evil and a blight upon our country. Grown-up Republicans, please, please, please take your party back. We need you.