Alonzo
01-25-2008, 05:04 PM
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 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.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78241
Fits right in with the rest of them I guess:
Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.....
The ride was largely what you'd expect with five brothers, ages 13 and under, packed into a wagon they called the ''white whale.''
As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours........
It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/romney/articles/part4_main/
(On Bush) 'We were terrible to animals,'' recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out.
''Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,'' Mr. Throckmorton said. ''Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.''
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E7DE113AF932A15756C0A9669C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=4
At least McCain and Giuliani didn't do anything cruel, but you don't have to look far to find those who did:
Judith Giuliani once demonstrated surgical products for a controversial medical-supply company that used dogs - which were later killed - in operations whose only purpose was to sell equipment to doctors.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04022007/news/regionalnews/judis_job_with__pup_killer_firm_regionalnews_dan_m angan.htm/
(About McCains national finance co-chair) After checking the blood-spattered pants of one of the men at the state crime laboratory in Springfield, it was determined that the stains were animal and not human blood. Backes said the men then changed their story and said they had "caught a dog and were barbecuing it."
Police then found the skinned animal on a spit in the park. The insides of the dog had been removed, and a bottle of liquor was found on a nearby park table. Backes said the men told him they had been drinking earlier in the evening at a West Bluff tavern.
One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed, skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of Berwyn, Ill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/10/AR2006031001843.html
This is all just par for the course if you're a republican presidential candidate I guess. Thompson is the only who seems clean, and he dropped out. Didn't fit in I guess.
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 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.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78241
Fits right in with the rest of them I guess:
Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.....
The ride was largely what you'd expect with five brothers, ages 13 and under, packed into a wagon they called the ''white whale.''
As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours........
It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/romney/articles/part4_main/
(On Bush) 'We were terrible to animals,'' recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out.
''Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,'' Mr. Throckmorton said. ''Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.''
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E7DE113AF932A15756C0A9669C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=4
At least McCain and Giuliani didn't do anything cruel, but you don't have to look far to find those who did:
Judith Giuliani once demonstrated surgical products for a controversial medical-supply company that used dogs - which were later killed - in operations whose only purpose was to sell equipment to doctors.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04022007/news/regionalnews/judis_job_with__pup_killer_firm_regionalnews_dan_m angan.htm/
(About McCains national finance co-chair) After checking the blood-spattered pants of one of the men at the state crime laboratory in Springfield, it was determined that the stains were animal and not human blood. Backes said the men then changed their story and said they had "caught a dog and were barbecuing it."
Police then found the skinned animal on a spit in the park. The insides of the dog had been removed, and a bottle of liquor was found on a nearby park table. Backes said the men told him they had been drinking earlier in the evening at a West Bluff tavern.
One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed, skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of Berwyn, Ill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/10/AR2006031001843.html
This is all just par for the course if you're a republican presidential candidate I guess. Thompson is the only who seems clean, and he dropped out. Didn't fit in I guess.