Willie Horton’s arrest was a club used to bludgeon then-Democatic Presidential candidate

Willie Horton’s arrest was a club used to bludgeon then-Democatic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.Tim Egan, the New York Times political opinion maker on all things West, has wasted no time in weighing in on what should become of possible Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Says Egan of the former Arkansas governor who commuted the sentence of suspected cop killer Maurice Clemmons, he should be “Willie Hortonized.”If this case does not sink the presidential aspirations of Huckabee, a leading Republican candidate, it should. By the standards that Republicans launched almost 20 years ago, Huckabee will be Willie Hortonized…Huckabee says this “horrible and tragic event” should not be politicized. But it is his party that has honed such attacks into a dark art…Back in 1988, when it came to light that Willie Horton committed fresh crimes while out on a weekend furlough program backed by then-Gov. Mike Dukakis of Massachusetts, Republicans used it to help destroy Dukakis the presidential candidate. It may even have cost him the election.