We knew this was coming. Now that Huckabees rise in the polls is obvious and his status as a top tier candidate (and a threat) is cemented in, we will now see what skeletons are in his closet. And as it turns out he does have one very big skeleton by the name of Wayne Dumond.

ABC's GMA has a story on Wayne Dumond, a convicted rapist who was paroled under (and probably at the behest of) Mike Huckabee. In the blotter:

A Missouri mother says she will do "whatever it takes" to stop former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee from becoming president, because he freed the man who went on to rape and murder her daughter, Carol Sue Shields (pictured).

"I can't imagine anybody wanting somebody like that running the country," Lois Davidson of Adrian, Mo., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Ouch, yeah it's bad. Very bad. Byron York goes further. Explaining the whole story back from 1984 and examing Huckabees actions and motives.

The Dumond case followed Huckabee around for the rest of his time in the governor's office. In his 2002 reelection bid, his Democratic opponent based virtually her entire campaign on the issue. And beyond the narrow issue of Dumond, Huckabee's actions raise larger questions about his views on crime and punishment. Critics, and some friends, too, have said Huckabee's position was deeply influenced by his Christian faith. "When I first met him, I was going through his positions on issues and I said, 'You're a conservative, so I'm sure you oppose granting parole for violent felons,'" Dick Morris, the campaign consultant who ran Huckabee's first run for lieutenant governor, told me. "And he said, 'Oh no, I would never take that position, because the concept of Christian duty requires that there is a possibility of forgiveness. The concept of Christian forgiveness requires that we keep open the process of parole - use it sparingly, but keep it open.'"

When I asked Huckabee about that, he reminded me that he was tough on a lot of criminals, too. "Heck, I executed more people than any governor in the history of the state," Huckabee told me. "It's not something I'm bragging about, I'm just saying that if it had been simply a matter of my Christian conscience saying I don't believe in capital punishment, then I was pretty lousy in my conscience."

But what ABC and Byron both miss is some context, which in this case was critical. In between Dumonds sentencing and his eventual parole, there was a high profile columnists (Steve Dunleavy ) and conservative message boards agitated that Wayne Dumond was a victim, possibly innocent, and that he should be paroled, nay even pardoned, here's an ugly taste of what was being said at the time.

Steve Dunleavy, who was sure that Dumond was framed:

What was the crazed motive behind this disgusting affair? Why Dumond? Gene Wirges, a fiesty 67-year-old publisher of a local weekly who is writing a book on this mess, told me: "Well, a Clinton kin had to be revenged. The sheriff was on a hot seat and young Wayne had been talking to a church group about how cars were suddenly disappearing. It turned out to be true. The sheriff along with his drugs, and turning the sheriff's department into a casino was heading up a car-theft ring. When this girl said she was raped, the sheriff wanted to help out the Clinton clan [ so that they might look the other way with respect to his illegal doings]. He would do anything for the girl's father and mother. The truth, the terrible truth is, that one of the guys she first identified as the rapist but who had an ironclad alibi had been going out with the girl. But the new governor has indicated to me on several occasions that he was more than disturbed about Wayne's case and the way Clinton and his boys handled this terrible thing. " You know, this is Arkansas. Right up until now this has been Clinton territory. Maybe not anymore."

Agitation on FreeRepublic for Wayne Dumond's parole and blaming Bill Clinton. Heck even the Voice gets in on the victim status: