Thread: Huckabee, his son, and nepotism?

I found this letter to the editor in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader.
Does anyone know how factual this is and can we get sme cross references?

In response to


In response to Charles Hatchko’s letter praising the morals of presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, perhaps we should look into a few instances regarding Mr. Huckabee’s behavior.

In 1998 Huckabee’s son, David, was fired from his job as a counselor at a Boy Scout camp after he and another counselor admitted to capturing and torturing a stray dog.

The method used was hanging, cutting the animal’s throat and stoning it to death.

While you can’t blame the then-governor for his son’s actions, his reaction to the investigation gives a look at his morals.

After news of this atrocity became public, the state chief prosecutor (an appointed post) attempted to bring charges and was promptly fired by Gov. Huckabee.

Add to the above the number of times the good governor has been under investigation for improperly receiving gifts as well as the disappearance of numerous pieces of furniture from the governor’s mansion when he and his companion vacated and I don’t have any problem in deciding where Mr. Huckabee’s sense of morality stands. Try walking the walk, Mr. Huckabee.


Bob Prescott Harveys Lake

http://www.timesleader.com/opinion/l...etter_ART.html

I don't know if this is the same son involved in the dog incident or not. This happened April 26, 2007 and it seems he got off pretty lightly (to me anyway).


Huckabee's Son Arrested With Handgun
Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee's Son Arrested With Gun at Arkansas Airport


In this booking photo released by the Pulaski County Sheriff's office, David Huckabee, 26, a son of former Arkansas Gov, and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, is shown in Little Rock, Ark., Thursday, April 26, 2007. David Huckabee was arrested at Little Rock's airport Thursday after a federal X-ray technician detected a loaded Glock pistol in his carry-on luggage. (AP Photo/Pulaski County Sheriff) The Associated Press By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Apr 26, 2007 (AP)
David Huckabee, a son of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, was arrested at an Arkansas airport Thursday after a federal X-ray technician detected a loaded Glock pistol in his carry-on luggage.

"I removed the bag and asked Mr. Huckabee if he knew what he had in the bag," Little Rock police officer Arthur Nugent wrote in a report after being summoned to a security checkpoint. "He replied he did now."

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Huckabee, 26, later pleaded guilty in Little Rock District Court after being charged with a misdemeanor count of possessing a weapon in a prohibited place.

"It was a silly mistake," Huckabee told reporters as he left the Pulaski County Jail. When asked whether it would affect his father's presidential campaign, Huckabee responded, "It shouldn't."

District Judge Lee Munson gave Huckabee a one-year suspended jail sentence and ordered him into 10 days of community service which Huckabee can avoid by paying $100. Huckabee will be on probation for a year. Fines and costs totaled $855.

The son of the former Arkansas governor held a concealed weapons permit at the time of the incident but state police are taking steps to revoke it. The elder Huckabee, who said last week that Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho perhaps could have been stopped if a teacher or student had also been armed, also has a concealed weapons permit.

"My wife and I love our son. What he did was irresponsible but not intentional," Mike Huckabee said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Nugent said David Huckabee had a .40-caliber Glock pistol in his black carry-on bag. Eight live rounds were in the gun none in the chamber and a nine-round clip was also in the bag. The weapon and ammunition were detained by Little Rock police while David Huckabee's gun permit was seized and given to the Arkansas State Police.

Mike Huckabee said his son grabbed the bag on the way to the airport and didn't realize the gun was inside.

"It's one of those stupid things," Mike Huckabee said. "He knows better."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3085058

Fences make good neighbors.

NEWSWEEK ARTICLE: Dogged: A Son’s Past Deeds Come Back To Bite Huckabee
Quote

By Michael Isikoff and Holly Bailey | NEWSWEEK
Dec 24, 2007 Issue | Updated: 2:51 p.m. ET Dec 15, 2007

As Mike Huckabee gains in the polls, the former Arkansas governor is finding that his record in office is getting more scrutiny. One issue likely to get attention is his handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— 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.

Huckabee called Bailey's account "totally untrue" and described him as a "bitter" exemployee. "I asked him to resign because he had so alienated the entire state police," he said. "It had nothing to do with my son." Brenda Turner, Huckabee's then chief of staff, and Kevin Crass, the Huckabee family lawyer, also disputed Bailey's account, although both acknowledged talking to him about the dog killing. "I asked him, 'Is it normal for the state police to … investigate something that happened at a Boy Scout camp?' " Turner says. "We wanted the same treatment that anybody else would get." (Animal cruelty in Arkansas is a misdemeanor, not a felony.)

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 sick & 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.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

www.newsweek.com

That is the same son. Hope President Huckabilly will do a better job managing the country then he did on raising a child.

Yikes. I was afraid it might be true. Good God I hope America is smart enough not to elect this guy as president or we'll all need to move to Australia ..