So Thompson Isn't Reagan After All?

realclearpolitics.com ^ | June 15, 2007 | Blake D. Dvorak

[Aetius]

You’re right that the focus on judges was not as intense then. That is how Scalia got overwhelming support. But it is the smooth-sailing that Scalia enjoyed that makes the O’Connor pick all the more regrettable, because it suggests that Reagan could have had a similar going with another genuine conservative/orginalist since both of his first two picks since both happened while the GOP controlled the Senate. Imagine if Reagan had not made the pointless pledge to appoint the first woman to the High Court? Imagine if he had picked Scalia first and then Bork (or another, preferably pro-Second Amendment conservative)? He could have still made the Kennedy blunder and we would have still had (for a short time) a 5 vote conservative majority on some social issues. Roe, for example, would have been overturned with the Casey case (White + Rehnquist + Scalia + Thomas + Alternate to O’Connor + possibly even Kennedy if he couldn’t cast the decisive vote saving Roe).

I do believe the Reagan thought O’Connor would be more conservative, but seeing as how returning sanity was already an issue for Republicans even back then, its just a shame that he took a greater risk than he had to with the O’Connor pick.

[suffering_fools]

Only thing you got right...

You know it, LOL

[Aetius]

Yeah, I definitely don’t like Bork on the Second Amendment. But I would still have preferred Bork over O’Connor or Kennedy. I don’t think he would have gotten it wrong as often as those two.

[Aetius]

Yeah, for some reason Will strikes me as the type who wouldn’t mind surrendering to the Left on most social/cultural issues, plus gun control.

[Jet Jaguar]

Don’t get me wrong, RWR was a great President.

But, every liberal, is going to compare the candidates to Reagan.

Reagan has passed. There will be no second coming of him.

Thompson is who he is. Compare him to the others running today.

Reagan fit the times in which he served.

Thompson can do the same in 2008.

[nckerr]

I’m with Fred!

[DesScorp]

Will and Novak don’t like him because he’s not into the DC culture the way they are. He doesn’t “look” Presidential to them. Will was pretty insulting to Fred. I lost a lot of respect for him. Novak, he’s just an ass. I expect as much from that tard.

[2ndDivisionVet]

If the big politicos, spinmeisters, pollsters, and all that bunch are running like hell to hop on the Thompson bandwagon, what does that tell you? Especially when they’re jumping ship from the S.S. Rudy McRomney and paddling the lifeboats as hard as they can towards the Isle of Fred.

[Hostage]

Why are you asking me? It’s pretty obvious what’s going on.

The point I was making is for people not to associate FDT with the political hack class inside the beltway. Most of them are mercenaries and they change allegiances to position themselves to catch the biggest paycheck consistent with whatever persona they’ve developed.

[NonValueAdded]

Novak let the administration hang in the wind for a long, long time. He knew the pundits were lying but kept silent. He let the Bush Administration absorb a lot of body blows when they needed the strength for Iraq. Novak is used food in my book.

[latina4dubya]

or his voice sounds

and i love his voice...

[babygene]

Your tag name suites you...

[A6M3]

No, Fred Thompson isn’t Reagan after all, he’s Ross Perot after all.

[freekitty]

I want someone who will stand up and be a good leader for our country and not be afraid to fight the frafters.

[rfp1234]

-I don’t find him to be a thrilling speaker.-

Still preferable to a shrilling shrieker (Herr Hitlery Klinton).

[backhoe]

For whatever it is worth around here, I haven’t taken Will or Novak seriously in years. My bird has more relevant and cogent observations about life and politics...

[Tenniel2]

Will and Novak are, putting it charitably, centrists, and their primary raison d'être is to preserve the flow of invitations to Beltway cocktail parties, at which their function is to confirm their hosts' delusions of political broadmindedness. Yap-yip, Georgie and Bobby. Never trust a man who wears a bow tie.

[Oklahoma]

Not even Reagan was REAGAN. Too many on here have tried to paint Ronald Reagan (the best President of the last half of the 20th Century) as the perfect politician. He wasn’t. He was also human and made the same mistakes we all do, mistakes in judgment and mistakes in policy. I hate to think of the criticism he would have endured if sites like FR and conservative talk radio had been around in the 80’s. It was bad enough as it was.

Hopefully, the best candidate we have running will get the nomination and win the election, but whichever one it is (Thompson, Hunter, Huckabee, or Romney, etc.) will not be perfect and we need to admit that at the beginning. I don’t want to hear anyone claiming Hillary would have made a better president the first time the winner does something they disagree with.

[Always Right]

Fred’s opposition to tort reform is based on Fred’s federalists principles. Fred just thinks most things belong at the state level. I agree in most cases, except tort reform actually is connected to the regulation of interstate commerce and we need national rules in that case because lawyers shop jurisdictions for the best rules to sue in. Fred is wrong on this issue, but I still like that he is a strong federalists on most issues.

[Chi-townChief]

Thompson = McCain-lite. he need sto prove himself otherwise.