Posted on 07/19/2007 7:33:24 AM PDT by pissant
This may be the political version of Evolution. The New York Times is out this morning with a story about billing records that show Fred Thompson did indeed charge for his time while helping a pro-choice group. Details from the article below:
Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.
According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2008, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.
Mr. Thompson's work for the family planning agency has become an issue because he is positioning himself as a faithful conservative who is opposed to abortion.
Read the whole article here. The Brody File has a call in to Thompson's people. Check back later for an update. Already, email is coming into The Brody File about the story. Here's one:
"The significance of this is not what Fred did 16 years ago. Had he been candid and honest, and explained himself, all would be well. The issue is that Fred lied for political expediency, and allowed others on his staff to do so on his behalf."
Lied may too strong a word. It seems like Thompson did what most politicians do. They beat around the bush and try to avoid an outright apology. Let's review shall we?
When this story first broke, Thompson's spokesman Mark Corallo said the following:
"Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period."
Then it became Thompson had "no recollection of doing any work on behalf of this group. He may have been consulted by one of the firm's partners who represented this group in 1991".
Days after the story broke, Thompson told radio talk show Sean Hannity:
"You need to separate a lawyer advocating a position from the position itself. They will probably come at me, in 35 years of law practice, with some people, I represented criminal defendants. I was a prosecutor. I had a general law practice. So that in and of itself doesn't mean anything anyway. … I'm not going to get down in the weeds with everything they dredge up over the next six months."
Thompson also sent in a column to the Powerline blog where he seemed to suggest he did some work:
"A lawyer who is a candidate or a prospective candidate for office finds himself in an interesting position because of the nature of the legal profession and the practice of law. … 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, Even it would not be appropriate for a lawyer to make such comments."
Any way you slice it, what we have here is an "evolving story". This isn't really about the abortion issue. Because of Thompson's consistent pro-life record in the Senate, pro-family groups will probably give him a pass on that aspect. But Thompson needs to be careful. He wants people to see him as a plain spoken, tell it like it is southerner. But evolving stories like this are normally left to "inside the beltway" Washington insiders. For his campaign to be successful, he needs to be seen as a Washington outsider not just another politician who is spinning his way out of a mess.
How was Thompson VOTING record on Abortion?
The rest is noise.
I'm not saying I'm against Fred Thompson, but the idea that he's a conservative Messiah is a bit ridiculous. He should be honest and admit his views on abortion have been somewhat fluid.
Given his record on abortion, he shouldn't be given any more of a pass than Giuliani or Romney on the issue -- he needs to go out and earn support.
“Because of Thompson’s consistent pro-life record in the Senate, pro-family groups will probably give him a pass on that aspect. But Thompson needs to be careful. He wants people to see him as a plain spoken, tell it like it is southerner.”
Amen! If you messed up Fred, just say so, don’t do damage control it doesn’t work. And while your at it, get rid of the homosexuals on your campaign payroll - that’s going to bite you on the backside eventually.
For those that want to diss this, notice it was published by “CBN.” The Christian Broadcast Network - a major outlet for religious conservatives. It is not a “hit-piece.”
If someone came up and asked if he lobbied for abortion rights, he may very well be in the right for saying no, if that was not the nature of the work he did for the group. When the specifics came out, then he would have a better idea about the question.
Abortion was never put to an up or down vote when Thompson was in the Senate. He voted in favor of a few reasonable restrictions, but as far as I know he still stands by statements he's made that he wants abortion-on-demand to be legal in every state.
WHAT in the hell does it matter what his position on abortion is????????? FOR pete sakes we need a good candidate and do any of you see one running right now, would you rather see the Clinton slime back in the WH???
Come on folks, if he picks conserv. judges, what does his position on this matter, we need someone strong on defense NOW and nothing else matters.
LOL.....the story began as an abortion story, but because of Fred's strong anti-abortion record the abortion angle has obviously fizzled and now the anti-fred's are admitting it.....talk about backpeddling...bwhahahahaha
Now they are desperately trying to latch on to Fred and his staff's recall about it in order to salvage some damage to Fred...LOL.
This will have no measurable effect on the Fred train......sorry anti-freds....thanks for playing....
I don't know -- what does anybody's position on anything matter? If you don't care about conservative issues, why be a Republican?
He has never said that.
You are lying again. At worst, he’s Federalist on the issues, which means overturn Roe and return the issue to the pre-1970s condition, which is the states.
Last time I checked Bush, the perfect pro lifer, hasn’t done that himself...(overturned Roe I mean)
Oh, maybe because he’s the most pro life electable candidate?
Ha, ha, ha! You’re working so hard against your “#2 guy,” that you won’t be able to vote for him in the general elections. LOL!
I know that you’ve got your hopes soaring on this one. I hope you’re wearing a parachute.
“but as far as I know he still stands by statements he’s made that he wants abortion-on-demand to be legal in every state.”
You need to provide the source for those statements, AND the statements themselves. As far as I know, Thomspon has never stated that.
If I were you, I’d ask admin to delete that post.
Comparing him to Romney and even more Rudy. Give me a break.
LESS THAN 20 YEARS AGO!
AND ... at an obvious cut rate of $250/hr for a favored client.
so, he charged them $5000 to tell them they really had no shot in their quest. (which is an educated guess on my part because it was clear that the admnistration had zero interest in entertaining changes in the law, and FRed clearly knew that. likely the 3.3 hours actually talking to others was just to clarify positions and confirm what he already knew)
"The ultimate decision must be made by the women. Government should treat its citizens as adults capable of making moral decisions on their own."Last time I checked Bush, the perfect pro lifer, hasn’t done that himself...(overturned Roe I mean)
-Fred Thompson, 1994, explaining why he opposed efforts to outlaw abortion.
No, of course he hasn't overturned Roe, but he doesn't have the power to do so. But Bush has supported pro-life legislation and he's appointed two solid pro lifers to the Supreme Court. Would President Thompson fight as hard as Bush has to keep the Hyde Amendment? Maybe yes maybe no, but I think Thompson has to go out and prove his worth. So far he hasn't done so.
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