Posted on 06/25/2007 12:34:59 PM PDT by PlainOleAmerican
Republican Fred Thompson, who likes to cast himself in the role of Washington outsider, has a long history as a political insider who earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government.
As a lobbyist for more than 20 years, billion-dollar corporations paid Thompson for his access to members of Congress and White House staff. During that time he was close to two Senate majority leaders, both from his home state of Tennessee - his political mentor Howard Baker and, more recently, his former colleague Bill Frist.
During Baker's tenure, Thompson lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.
More recently, while Frist led the Senate, Thompson earned more than $750,000 lobbying for a British reinsurance company that wanted to limit its liability from asbestos lawsuits.
That history as a Washington insider is at odds with the image Thompson has sought to convey to voters. When he first ran for the Senate in 1993, Thompson cast himself in the part of the gruff, plainspoken everyman, leased a red pickup truck and drove around Tennessee in his shirt sleeves.
Now, as he considers an expected run for president in 2008, the actor-politician continues to position himself as a political outsider.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Someone needs to call Sean and ask him about that.
Topic linking..
Don’t think DU hasn’t done it....
Did you see the link a positive or negative towards Thompson? Pro lobby or anti lobby?
In other words, did you think the link was going to help bring the facts surrounding Thompson to the table, or just add fuel to a anti-lobbyist fire built by the DNC?
Let me jump in here and ask what you mean by “top linking.” I’m not familiar with that term.
Related links. More information on Fred Thompson.
My link wasn’t on lobbying. It was on campaign finance reform.
Aha. So, you top-linked to an article dated Feb. 23, 1997? You call that “more information”? I call it “moot.”
I just posted it today. It is new to the forum.
Please stop with the games.
The piece you linked was another attack piece on Thompson from 1997....ten years ago.
What do you think campaign finance reform is aimed at? What do you think lobby reform is aimed at? Both are aimed at money in politics and in particular, BIG money or corporate/institutional money.
Are you as naive as you are trying to appear? Or exactly what I am accusing you of being?
Well, I went back and tried to check the links that you provided in your top link. They were so long, I just searched each one for mention of Fred Thompson. He wasn’t mentioned in any of them—unless my search function isn’t working. So...how is this top link providing more information about Thompson?
YOU mention Thompson once under the last link. Can you clarify what it is that we are supposed to learn form your top link?
If you can’t clarify, then I can only assume that someone else fed you the information to post here.
I’ll be happy to apologize if you can show me where I’m wrong.
Our friend has gone missing....
Did very little of it apparently.
Yes. Imagine that.
No games. I have and will always link relevant topics.
Thanks for keeping the attention on it though!
Go to that thread and I will gladly help you read it.
Non-responsive.
Good. But yet, the thread is stil bumped. :)
A bump doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t bring anyone to the thread. Besides, everyone who came to it has found it irrelevant—except you.
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