I have some questions about Fred Thompson that needs to be answered.
1. Besides being a Senator and an Actor, what else has he done?
2. Is this the same Fred Thompson that was rolled over by John Glenn in the Chinagate hearings?
3. Is this the same Fred Thompson that supported McCain and voted for the McCain/Fiengold bill?
4. Why is it ok for Fred Thompson to start as Pro-Choice and end up as Pro-Life but not ok for others like Romney?
5. Does he have any executive experience?
Kevin Davis wrote: "1. Besides being a Senator and an Actor, what else has he done?"
Plenty. Fred began by working his way through college, holding jobs as a shoe salesman, truck driver, and even a factory worker prior to becoming a lawyer. This work ethic, combined with his extensive study of classical philosophy and political science, led Fred to a firm belief in conservative ideals.
Fred Thompson served as a member of the Tennessee Appellate Court Nominating Commission, 1985-1987; Special counsel, Senate Committee on Intelligence, 1982; Special counsel, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 1980-1981; Special counsel to Lamar Alexander, governor of Tennessee, 1980; Minority counsel, Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities ("Watergate Committee”), 1973-1974; an Assistant U.S. attorney, 1969-1972 and a practicing attorney, 1967-1969.
Thompson is a Visiting Fellow at The American Enterprise Institute, where his areas of advanced study include China, Korea and russia. He was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2002. Thompson is also a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Fred Thompson is also an author. He has written a book, the Watergate memoir "At That Point in Time," and numerous articles and white papers.
Fred's latest occupation is that of radio commentator, filling in for Paul Harvey with a series of hard-hitting short commentaries on ABC radio.
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And wrote: "2. Is this the same Fred Thompson that was rolled over by John Glenn in the Chinagate hearings?"
No, it's the same Fred Thompson who was stabbed in the back by a man Fred, like many Americans, had believed to be a marine aviator, astronaut and authentic American hero. Turns out that Glenn had been reduced to being just another Democrat political hack. Fred, who had worked in an atmosphere of general cooperation in the Watergate Hearings, would soon discover that the Demoncrats has lost their last drop of honor. In his own words:
The Governmental Affairs Committee's final report sets forth the results of our investigation to the fullest extent publicly possible. The committee concluded that in the light of the plan, the ties of many leading Democratic fundraisers to the PRC government, and the money trail leading back to the Greater China area, ``there is strong circumstantial evidence that the PRC government was involved'' in funding, directing, or encouraging illegal contributions to American political campaigns during the 1996 election cycle. We emphasized that while the intelligence information seemed pretty clear it did have some gaps. Moreover, no consensus existed regarding whether we were witnessing a single plan or a series of possibly coordinated efforts by different parts of the Chinese government. Again, we vetted the report with the intelligence agencies, and they carefully scrubbed potentially source-identifying information.
Nevertheless, many media accounts characterized the report as interesting but a failure because we did not demonstrate conclusively the flow of specific Chinese dollars into specific campaigns. The Democrats on the committee issued a minority report which minimized and denigrated the significance of our findings.
- Fred Thompson, "The China Syndrome," June 22, 1998
http://www.nationalreview.com/22jun98/thompson062298.html
[Thompson] points out that he has held office for only four years, and, in Washington, "people get built up fast, and they get taken down fast." Sure, conservatives hungry for a spokesman were tickled by that response to Clinton's address back in 1994, but "the idea that they would build me up based on reading a five-minute speech into a monitor is kind of silly." And then they were "disappointed that I wasn't able to 'get Bill Clinton' in my hearings, so they consider the hearings a failure. That's just part of life."
Thompson says that he had Watergate in the back of his mind — "too much so, in some respects" — and tried to follow the Watergate model, which demands a certain broadness.
"A lot of my friends," he says, "thought that if we could just get something on the Democrats — and God knows there was a lot to get — we'd be in clover." But Thompson opted to tread lightly, recognizing that "today the accuser is almost as suspect as the accused. There's a good deal of skepticism about all of us in the political process" — which, he argues, happens to be "the major part of Clinton's success." Indeed, "that's why he survived." What Thompson had not sufficiently appreciated is the vitriol, coupled with a knack for sabotage, of the Democrats.
"There was nothing I could have done," he pleads, "to cause John Glenn [the senior Democrat on the committee] to try to have a fair, down-the-middle investigation." Could he hazard a guess as to why Glenn, in the waning days of a long and relatively dignified career, chose to play the part of White House protector? After a long pause, he answers, "I got some ideas, but I'd just rather not get into it. I can only say that it's one of the most disappointing things that I've ever encountered. I've been around hearings and practiced a lot of law and all, but I didn't expect that. I can't read his mind, but it was consistent, it was persistent, and there never was a moment when he deviated from what he had decided to do."
What about the suspicion that there was an exchange between Glenn and the president: obstruction for a valedictory space flight? "Well, that's between him and the good Lord," says Thompson. "I certainly don't know the answer and never will."
Thompson has concluded that traditional investigative hearings are a thing of the past. As it stands, "You have to find out all you're going to find out beforehand and use your hearings to demonstrate what you've already discovered." Why? Because "there's too much partisanship and too short an attention span among the media, especially television. We were deemed a failure literally the day after our hearings started." Most of the press considered the hearings too dull, too cautious, too fussy. Thompson held some off-the-record meetings with reporters, "and I said, 'Look, guys: Pay attention. I don't have John Dean and a taping system, but there's some very interesting stuff here. This was the most corrupt political campaign we've ever seen. You need to keep up with it, even if it doesn't seem blockbuster.' And they all nodded, said they understood. Bullsh**: They didn't. I should have saved my breath. The name of the game is the president: Are you going to get him or not?"
- Jay Nordlinger in National Review, May 17, 1999
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805040/replies?c=2
On issues, he addresses head-on the major complaints conservatives have about his record. He was largely stymied in his 1997 investigation of both Clinton-Gore and GOP campaign fund-raising abuses: Key witnesses declined to testify or fled the country, though evidence eventually surfaced of a Chinese plan to influence U.S. politics. He won't argue with those who say he showed "naiveté" about how he would be stonewalled in his investigation. He says he's wiser now.
- Interview with WSJ's John Fund, March 17, 2007
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009798
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And wrote: "3. Is this the same Fred Thompson that supported McCain and voted for the McCain/Fiengold bill?"
No. He's also wiser about the chances of having any measure of real campaign finance reform. Still, he sees something fundamentally wrong about accepting money from people who have a critical stake in issues a lawmaker will have to help decide:
Confronting further conservative criticisms, Thompson cheerfully acknowledges that he is "off the [Republican] reservation" on campaign-finance reform. He contends that "it's just not right to take large sums of money from people who have legislation before you. It's that basic. The idea of mixing policy and money in that way is just so obviously a problem … It's kind of like an elephant in a bathtub: If you don't see it at first glance, chances are you never will." The situation "may not be fixable," he says — but ought to be.
- Jay Nordlinger, National Review, May 17, 1999
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805040/posts
WALLACE: You have taken some stands that conservatives may not like. For instance, you voted for John McCain's campaign finance reform.
THOMPSON: I came from the outside to Congress. And it always seemed strange to me. We've got a situation where people could give politicians huge sums of money, which is the soft money situation at that time, and then come before those same politicians and ask them to pass legislation for them.
I mean, you get thrown in jail for stuff like that in the real world. And so I always thought that there was some reasonable limitation that ought to be put on that, and you know, looking back on history, Barry Goldwater in his heyday felt the same thing.
So that's not a non-conservative position, although I agree that a lot of people have interpreted it that way.
- Interview with Fox News Sunday's Mike Wallace, March 11, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258222,00.html
Many on the right remain angry he supported the campaign finance law sponsored by his friend John McCain. "There are problems with people giving politicians large sums of money and then asking them to pass legislation," Mr. Thompson says. Still, he notes he proposed the amendment to raise the $1,000 per person "hard money" federal contribution limit.
Conceding that McCain-Feingold hasn't worked as intended, and is being riddled with new loopholes, he throws his hands open in exasperation. "I'm not prepared to go there yet, but I wonder if we shouldn't just take off the limits and have full disclosure with harsh penalties for not reporting everything on the Internet immediately."
- Interview with WSJ's John Fund, March 17, 2007
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009798
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And wrote: "4. Why is it ok for Fred Thompson to start as Pro-Choice and end up as Pro-Life but not ok for others like Romney?"
Because Thompson did NOT start as Pro-choice. National Review got it wrong years ago and even today will not own up to having published information that simply has no basis in fact.
Fred Thompson's voting record is 100% pro-life:
STRONGLY OPPOSES topic 1: "Abortion is a woman's right"
http://www.issues2000.org/Senate/Fred_Thompson_SenateMatch.htm
Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Fred_Thompson.htm#Abortion
National Right to Life Committee on Fred Thompson:
"This morning, I cited reports being promoted by the pro-Romney blog Evangelicals for Mitt suggesting that Fred Thompson ran his two campaigns for Senate in Tennessee as a pro-choicer. Not so, National Right to Life executive co-director Darla St. Martin just told me.
St. Martin said that she went down to Tennessee in 1994 to speak with Thompson personally when he first ran for Senate, and that she determined he was against abortion.
'I interviewed him and on all of the questions I asked him, he opposed abortion,' St. Martin said. She told me that the group went on to support him in that election, and his record reinforced for her that their determination was correct.
'He has a consistent voting record that is pro-life,' she said.
On the NRLC website, they archive their congressional ratings back to 1997, so they include six of his eight years in the Senate. Thompson took the pro-life position on every vote he cast on the abortion issue..."
http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp?BlogID=6017
"NARAL also rated nine other Republicans... Based on their abortion rights stance, the following Republicans received a grade of 'F': ...Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee..."
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Try=No&Page=\Politics\archive\200007\POL20000714a.html
"With 54% of the vote, pro-life former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander (R) won the seat of retiring PRO-LIFE Senator Fred Thompson."
http://www.nrlc.org/news/2002/NRL11/senate.html
"Listed below is the name, state and party of each of these senators along with Planned Parenthood's rating of them.
Name State Party PP rating...
Fred Thompson TN R 0% "
http://www.all.org/stopp/rr0111.htm
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And wrote: "5. Does he have any executive experience?"
Some. Thompson served as Special counsel to Lamar Alexander, governor of Tennessee. He has over 20 years experience as a small businessman, running a successful law practice with offices in Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
Executive experience in government, however, is no guarantee of a a great or even good presidency. Jimmy Carter has demonstrated that it can lead to what was arguably the worst presidential administration in the history of the United States. And two of our greatest presidents, Jefferson and Lincoln, had little or no executive experience prior to becoming president.
