Oleaginous, dead-eyed Mike Huckabee blames HuffPo, The Clenis, and everybody but himself (for release of rapist Wayne Dumond at the behest of Clinton haters who had taken up Dumond’s cause. Dumond went on to rape and kill again, after multiple letters, to Hucklebee, warned he would do exactly that).

What a surprise! Funny thing though:

Huckabee’s claiming that he had no formal role in Dumond’s release, and that he exerted no behind-the-scenes pressure on the parole board. Yet the substance of today’s HuffPo story comes from one Olan Reeves, a former Huckabee aide, who confirmed Hucklebee did that very thing.

Now, in the clip at the TPM link, Hucklebee says HuffPo (actually, Murray Waas) distorted what Reeves said, and all you have to do is go to his site and you’ll see a statement from Reeves to that effect. My transcript:

HUCKABEE: HuffPo does’nt want to give the whole story.

You fight it by hoping people will do a little research on their own …. Mr. Reeves is outraged today because the Huffington Post totally misrepresented and just utterly distorted his statements. We have a statement from Mr. Reeves that will be on our website today and I think you’ll find out that this agenda of the Huffington Post is outrageously misleading.

I’m on the site now.

No statement from Reeves.

Nada. Zip. Zilch. Just a day old transcript of Hucklebee’s last set of denials. This is inexcusably bad staffwork; never would have happened with the Bushies, Bless Their Hearts. If the guy can’t get a war room set up, how’s he going to run the country?

Again, you really have to think it’s only the thin-mess of the Republican field—Rudy imploding, Willard Mitt pandering, Thompson falling asleep, McCain flexing his jowls—that’s letting Huckabee get any traction at all. Maybe he could get some help from toe-sucking Dick Morris, his latest consultant?

NOTE Sheesh, this is such a simple issue, right? Just release the records, and have done with it!

UPDATE At last Hucklebee’s slow-moving staff has gotten it together and posted on the site.

1. Although Huckabee claimed on the teebee it wold be a “a statement from Mr. Reeves,” Mr. Reeves name is not on it; it looks like a rehash of past statements prepared by anonymous staffers.

2. Xan is right: The smoking gun is the letter Hucklebee wrote Dumond; with that letter out there, Huckabee didn’t need to do anything else. (Worth a post, Xan).

3. Josh Marshall is right:

as a practical matter, I think Huckabee’s defense on DuMond is so damning as to be almost indistinguishable from the charges leveled by his critics.

Huckabee’s defense:

n the midst of a general discussion about the Governor’s general philosophy related to clemency, one of the Board members asked the Governor about the DuMond case and his intention to grant clemency (which was public knowledge due to the notice of intent.)

The Governor responded by stating that he believed the facts warranted his decision to initiate a notice of intent. As has been reported, he added that he believed DuMond had gotten a bad deal from the justice system.

And why did Hucklebee believe that? Because he believed a bizarre conspiracy theory put together by a gaggle of professional Clinton Haters, instead of the warnings from the letters of women Dumond had already raped.

Still sucky staffwork, say I. I mean, that’s like Karen and Karl, Bless their hearts, coming out a defense that Bush couldn’t have served out his term in TANG because he was drunk at the time.