As Ibn Warraq points out, you are incorrect in stating that the parole board disapproved of the clemency request. You also left out some intervening circumstances - that Clemmons was paroled on Huckabee’s recommendation, was re-arrested, sent to prison, re-paroled, re-arrested, got out on bail, was re-arrested, got bailed out again (by the delightfully named Jail Sucks Bail Bond company), and then killed the officers. So it is more than a tiny bit different from giving a first-degree murderer sentenced to life without parole the weekend off because you believe in rehabilitation.
The effort to frame the crime issue in a certain way (i.e., focusing on black-on-white crime and framing it as a consequence of liberalism and civil rights) has obvious roots in white supremacy and appeals to white supremacists.
But that general critique of the GOP strategy in the 1980s aside, I agree with this assessment. The Bush ad is significantly less racist than the PAC ad. And as I pointed out earlier, that was obvious at the time, since the Bush camp had to distance themselves from the PAC ad.
Algher wrote: “Al Gore used the furlough program against Dukakis - and then Atwater took it further putting a human face on it. Disgusting but effective.”
Gore’s use of the issue does not excuse Bush’s use, but rather places it into proper context by demonstrating that it was possible to exploit the issue politically without resort to demagoguery.