Washington (CNN) – Sarah Palin said in a recent radio appearance that Mike Huckabee made a "horrible decision" nine years ago to commute the prison sentence of the man suspected of killing four police officers in Washington, but she added that her "heart goes out" to the former Arkansas governor.
In an interview last week with conservative radio host Lars Larson, Palin called the murders "tragic" and "unfathomable."
"It was a bad decision obviously, but my heart goes out to Huckabee," the former Alaska governor said. "I love him, and I feel bad for him to be in this position. But I feel even worse for the victim's families in this situation. I do feel bad for Huckabee, but it was a horrible decision he made."
Huckabee has said he regrets the decision to commute the sentence of the suspected shooter, Maurice Clemmons, but said he thinks he made the right assessment at the time. Palin said she had never pardoned or granted clemency to prisoners when she served in Juneau.
"I don't have a whole lot of mercy for the bad guys," she said. "I'm on the good guys' side."
Pressed on her political ambitions, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee would not rule out a third party run at the White House in 2012.
"That depends on how things go in the next couple of years," she said. "It really does depend. There are enough Republicans who are realizing, 'Oh whoops, some of us liberal republicans have screwed up.' And I'm not including myself in that group, but some liberal Republicans have screwed up."
Palin said her decision rests on whether or not the GOP does a better job of appealing to its conservative base.
"If the Republican Party gets back to that base, I think our party is going to be stronger and there's not going to be a need for a third party, but I'll play that by ear in these coming months, coming years," she said.
From CNN Politics
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This woman is too much! In reality what she just did was smile and appear sympathetic as she stabbed Huckabee in the back and turned the knife.
"I don't have a lot of mercy for the bad guys" she said. "I'm on the good guys' side." She is setting herself up for a Presidential run by insinuating that Huckabee is on the bad guys' side.
Someone in Alaska please come forward and tell the truth about this lying fraud. I can't take much more of her bullsh@t. She is dangerous and needs to be stopped.
She is secretly gloating he will be out of the running. You Betch!
I'm on the good guy's side.....Real intelligent thing to say Sarah....Gee and there are some who think she would make a good president....If it were Obama who had of commuted that cop killers sentence go she would have been crying foul and calling Obama a terrorrist.........Sarah go back to school and get educated
"I don't have a whole lot of mercy for the bad guys," she said.
Gotta love that good Christian heart. Better to be judged by the righteous and merciful Creator than by the "perfect" Sarah Palin.
Who cares what knucklehead Palin says or does??? This is not news! Stop giving her press and maybe she'll go away!She couldn't handle governing a state that has a smaller population than the city I live in,She's nobody
Palin probably never pardoned any bad guys because she could not figure out how to hunt them legally from the air after their release and she does not support the “Catch and Release Program”.
Nothing like a woman to clean up the house!
Go Sarah! Clean up the GOP mess like you did in Alaska and show these elitists that their Great-granfathers were a bunch of poor inmigrants before they got the American Dream!
People are people nomatter where they are from....and when they are treated like equals, the Americans will prosper.
I am not paying 50,000 dollars to send my kid to harvard to became an Obama and a ACORN type of marxists...I love Profit! and money and Sarah makes sense for me and for a prosperous America!
Drill baby Drill!
While there's no excuse for what Huckabee did, I seriously doubt that Sarah Palin's heart goes out to anybody or anything, save her own greedy heart!
CNN, why the stories about Palin all the time? Are you promoting her? Are you getting paid to do so? Would all of you like to see her as President? Do you think her particular brand would be good for America? Please, please, please, make her at least earn the publicity instead of shoveling it on us in her stead. Please.
What a wonderful President Sarah Palin will make. I can't say it any better than that.
Oh please, and if Huckabee were NOT a Republican, she would lambaste him.
Some seem to forget that this is not Huckabee's first bad decision. A pregnant woman was murdered by a man Huckabee set free -against recommendations of pretty much everyone around him. He's ignorant, and guilty of being blind to so-called "religious conversions" of these criminals.
What tripe. Both Palin and Huckabee should be relegated to the after-thoughts they have become. Thankfully neither is representative of any wide swath of America.
Whatever she does, it won't be for America, just her. Sarah Palin: A legend in her own mind. What a joke!
A third party seems unlikely at this time, as it would simply keep in power the current abomination. However, when Sarah Palin is involved, a third party might become an overwhelming majority party and the death bed of liberalism. However, one must wait and see how bad this administration is in screwing things up.
How fascinating that Palin thinks some of the 'liberal Republicans" screwed up when she is the biggest screw up of all time.
Shut your mouth already!
I am guessing that Sarah thinks this sounds sincere, in reality any idiot can obviously see that this is an underhanded comment meant to slam a likely rival in 2012.
What heart?
Hypocrite! If it had been a Democratic Governor who issued that pardon to Maurice Clemmons, she'd be all over that ex-Governor like stink on you know what.
HYPOCRITE!
Oh dear god please let her run as a third party candidate!! They can split whats left of the republican votes between her and the unlucky person that runs under the republican banner. Thus ensuring we do not suffer from the idiotic ideas that all of these people espouse that led us down the road of ruin!!
Yes, Miss Palin, you just keep playing by your ears. That is real good.l
I can't believe the ignorance of these so called educated people....when Huckabee pardoned this guy....he did it for the right reasons.....a teenager was given a sentence of 108 years for armed robbery.........the sentencing was flaw.......unless huckabee has the gift to read into the future......he could not have forseen what just recently happened.....I'm no Huckabee fan....but come on.....how could Sarah call this a bad decision?.......I'm amazed by the constant stupidity.
CNN's daily fascination with this airhead is bordering on the creepy.
cut me a break palin if it was a democrat that did this you would be all over the news media bad mouthing that person what do you really want out of this remember people are street smart not stupid
and ready to go.
She'll bring us back from the brink of socialism and return us to American basics and the Constitution.....
Let the drumbeat begin.
Shame, there are really losers out there who care what she says.