Posted on 07/13/2007 7:48:24 AM PDT by pissant
Fred Thompson is backing off his flat denial that he once lobbied for an abortion-rights group. He now says he doesn’t remember it, but does not dispute evidence to the contrary.
The climb-down could be a significant embarrassment for a prospective candidate with a plain-spoken appeal and who has courted the GOP’s anti-abortion base, although Thompson and his advisers had signaled for several days that it was coming.
Realizing that opponents in both parties are mining his legal career for damaging ammunition, Thompson also is engaging in a bit of preemption. He writes in a column posted Wednesday by the conservative Power Line blog: “[I]f a client has a legal and ethical right to take a position, then you may appropriately represent him as long as he does not lie or otherwise conduct himself improperly while you are representing him. In almost 30 years of practicing law I must have had hundreds of clients and thousands of conversations about legal matters. Like any good lawyer, I would always try to give my best, objective and professional opinion on any legal question presented to me.”
The abortion-rights issue arose when the Los Angeles Times reported last week that Thompson had “accepted a lobbying assignment” from the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, which wanted the administration of President George H.W. Bush to relax a restriction on federal payments to clinics that offered abortion counseling.
Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo told the Times in an e-mail: “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period.” The Times said minutes from a board meeting of the group suggested otherwise.
On Thursday, Corallo offered a less sweeping comment about Thompson and the group: “He has no recollection of doing any work for this group. And since he was of counsel and not a member of the firm, it was not unusual for the firm’s partners to trot their clients in to meet him, get his views and even some advice.”
So the difference may boil down to how you define “lobbying.” It has been clear for several days that Thompson was not going to stick with a complete denial. When an Associated Press reporter asked him about the matter this weekend at the Young Republicans National Convention, he deflected with one of his folksy observations: “I’d just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing.”
Then in an interview with Sean Hannity that was reported by Thomas B. Edsall of The Huffington Post, Thompson was even more evasive: “You need to separate a lawyer who is advocating a position from the position itself.”
The former “Law and Order” actor has an anti-abortion voting record as a U.S. senator from Tennessee, but some statements he made early in his political career have led some conservatives to question whether he once had favored abortion rights.
The lobbying controversy illustrates the harsh scrutiny that awaits Thompson when he formally kicks off his campaign, and shows the difficulty of trying to answer high-stakes questions without a full campaign infrastructure.
Thompson aides say they do not believe the brouhaha has hurt him with Republican voters. “Consider the source,” said one Thompson adviser. “Conservatives don’t pay much attention to liberal groups that say they want to help, and tell them why their guy isn’t as great as they think.”
The lobbying story is one of several recent pieces criticizing Thompson, and advisers are now considering pushing back his announcement even further. They had planned to schedule the announcement before an Aug. 5 debate in Des Moines, Iowa, but now are considering jumping in even later than that.
The advisers say they realize how searing the scrutiny will be and want to be ready. And they want to have more of their staff in place. Thompson has to convince skeptics he’s ready for the race and ready for the job, and hopes that a top-flight campaign operation will help make that case. The announcement date will be based on factors that include IRS regulations governing when Thompson will have to disclose the millions of dollars he has already raised.
Thompson says in the Power Line column that he had “half dozen or so lobbying clients.” His column concludes: ‘I’m certainly not surprised that such a diverse career is being mined by others. As we get further into this political season we will undoubtedly see the further intersection of law, politics and the mainstream media.”
No. This is a flat-out lie. Read Fred’s piece. We discussed it up and down here yesterday.
I read Fred’s piece. It certainly had no denials in it. You can contrue it one of two ways -
As a preemptive strike to tell us he will not be responding to future “dirt” regarding his clients.
Or a backdown from the denial.
I'd always thought of FR as a place to pool ideas and help move the conservative agenda forward. Unfortunately, it’s now just a place where people challenge the conservatism of others and exchange metaphorical FU's.
Basically, I don't understand anymore how FR helps the overall conservative agenda or prevents the more liberal candidates from winning elections. The complete lack of any pragmatism is not a recipe for success.
So, what we have in this item you posted, is no new information. It’s just old information interpreted in a way that you like. The same as ever. Pfftt!
Fred is going to be our next president.
But it is coming to head rapidly with Ames being about 30 days out and we’ll probably see some drop outs afterward. Time is rapidly fading to get organizations with funding in place for the Jan. - Feb. onslaught of primaries. It looks somewhat like 2000, a few out front and a bunch hoping to be players. We’ll see and one interesting aspect will be whom will the drop outs cast their support to after they leave the campaign trail....
Interesting times a coming.......
You don’t remember the fights between the McCain and Bush camps on FR? Brutal. It’s always been brutal here. Much more interesting than a site that marches in lockstep with the RNC.
FR helps AFTER the primaries and its help to the conservative cause was on display a few weeks ago, when we helped flatline the amnesty bill.
In before the opus? /sarc
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
*Yawn*
I see. So far I’ve been criticized for bringing up “old” thompson quotes. Now I get grief for bringing up a new article on the hottest topic in the blogosphere regarding politics. I guess I’ll just post Fred press releases from now on.
The easiest and most generally used tactic when running against a lawyer is to trade off a general perception that most people dislike lawyers. Goodness knows that a lot of lawyers have earned disfavor but, as it turns out, folks understand our system better than a lot of politicians think they do. In my first run for the Senate, my opponent tried the old demagoguery route – “He has even represented criminals!” – to no avail.
A first cousin of this ploy is to associate the lawyer with the views of his client. Now-United States Chief Justice John Roberts addressed this notion during his confirmation hearings. “… [I]t’s a tradition of the American Bar that goes back before the founding of the country that lawyers are not identified with the positions of their clients. The most famous example probably was John Adams, who represented the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre.”
Roberts pointed out that Adams was actually vindicating the rule of law. Every person, unpopular or not, is entitled to representation. He further said, “That principle that you don’t identify the lawyer with the particular views of the client or the views that the lawyer advances on behalf of the client, is critical to the fair administration of justice.”
Like Adams, the views of attorney Abe Lincoln would have been a little hard to discern from looking at the positions he took as a lawyer. He represented the big railroad companies and on other occasions represented farmers and small land owners against the railroads.
Likewise during the Roberts confirmation, the New York Times reported on August 5, 2005 that as an appellate lawyer in the mid-1990s, Roberts gave advice to a gay-rights group that helped them win a 1996 anti-discrimination suit. Chief Justice Roberts had no direct hand in the suit. Rather, colleagues at his firm were handling the case and sought advice from a number of partners, him included. The group said that Chief Justice Roberts provided “invaluable strategic guidance” formulating legal theories.
I’ve experienced another gambit of those schooled in the creative uses of law and politics: dredging up clients – or another lawyer’s clients – that I may have represented or consulted with, and then using the media to get me into a public debate as to what I may have done for them or said to them 15 or 20 years ago. Even if my memory serves me correctly, it would not be appropriate for a lawyer to make such comments.
This situation does however bring to mind my many years in the law, and the nature of law practice in a country such as ours that prizes independence and individual rights. Of course, these values could not be protected without lawyer-client confidentiality or if lawyers were identified with the positions of their clients.
Yes. A good attempt at preemption.
Despite the worst efforts by you, the lib media and the Democrats, Fred’s still doing great among likely voters!
Rasmussen Friday the 13th:
Fred Thompson 25%
Rudy Giuliani 24%
John McCain 12%
Mitt Romney 12%
Mike Huckabee 2%
Sam Brownback 2%
Keep it up! I just donated another $100 to Friends of Fred, bringing my total so far to $250 since their website went up June 5th.
On my modest salary, I hadn’t planned to give so much so soon, but you guys bring out the campaign donor in me!
The inside buzz is that all of the slime heaped on Fred is actually helping his campaign by painting him as a symapathetic figure under attack from panicky rivals and the drive-by media.
Thanks for your part in all that, and thanks for persuding me to open my wallet for Fred Thompson!
His apathetic response reveals his heart.
A pro-life individual would be outraged at the suggestion that he or she may have aided abortion, particularly in their professional life for money.
The fact that his reaction is "I don't remember" says a lot. It means he holds out the possibility that he may have lobbied for abortion, and ultimately doesn't care.
I know that I can’t change your mind about Fred. The information is for other people to see for themselves.
Why is it that when someone disagrees with you on Fred Thompson (do you know why?) he must therefore be "rooting for Hillary"? How can you make that judgment?
Embarrasment. Maybe. Not a campaign killer. Thompson still wins GOP nomination. He and Huckabee will make a great team.
No problem. Enjoy
I think it will be a harder sell than the RATS and their media handmaidens realize. His lobbying career was a long time ago (have you noticed how McCrazy has been spared talk of his long-ago Keating Five scandal?). More important, normal people have far more respect for corporations than these idiots realize. They don't see it as a character flaw if you lobby for a big successful company; they're impressed that a big successful company thinks you're good enough to represent them.
The Swift Boat issues stuck to Kerry despite being very old because military sins are another story entirely.
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