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.
They didn’t even mention Gilmore?
Oh, I didn’t get the newsflash that Gilmore dropped out.
“Perhaps Hunter would have higher poll numbers if his supporters spent more time trying to build up their candidate rather than tearing down others. Just a thought...”
The Anti-Federalists failed (like every ‘anti-movement’) and so will those whom spend their time aiming their weapon in the wrong direction.
Might as well shoot oneself in the leg...and overdose on OPINION.
Suit yourself. Continue with what you're doing, but I don't want to hear any complaints from the Duncanistas that their boy isn't getting any traction. If they're not willing to put forth the effort to promote him, then why should I even make an effort to consider him? Due to the tactics of the Hunter supporters I've completely crossed him off my list. If Fred is taken out, I'll vote for Gov. Huckabee. His supporters aren't so obnoxious.
Do me a favor. Do a keyword search “duncan Hunter” on FR. Then tell me I haven’t been promoting him here after you see about 200 articles I’ve posted, none of which I’ve seen you comment upon.
And if you vote for a fraud like Huckabee, then you’ll deserve what you get.
I know a few women you would be threaten by and some of them could scare the devil out of you with just a look.
This is pretty much a Libertarian position, in which the woman would be obligated to make the choice sans the taxpayer funding thereof and restrictions on abortion. She'll likely choose life.
This position was consistent with the pro-life movement then, as it wasn't as influential as it is now.
That's the Hillary Clinton approach and the current status quo.
Baloney. It was an approach consistent with the pro-life movement then. Please remember that the pro-life movement was reeling then, with the WH & Congress under full Rat control.
If there's no taxpayer funding and/or restrictions, what do you think women considering an abortion going to do? They're more than likely going to keep it or give it up for adoption. This is what Fred was talking about then.
And how is that different from the status quo?
LOL. Yer a funny one.
No it’s not! That’s a bogus argument. Nice try though.
He’s dropped out of the race.
Thanks, yeah I researched and found out that a few mins after I posted that, I didn’t hear about it till today.
So a candidate's record is of little interest? That's what a majority of them are.
That's why so many of them are only a few posts long. Some of them are so old that a visitor to the thread can smell the mildew. Most of the people who do post on those threads are already in the Hunter camp. People just aren't too interested in articles from 1997 and a lot of old speeches.
I'll let you be the judge of that.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=duncanhunter
Just take a look around. Look at our research, if you don't think we haven't been promoting him.
Of course it's the status quo! No federal funding goes to abortions (by statute) and women are free to make the choice to kill their unborn children. That's exactly the status quo, and that's what Mr. Thompson supported. Whether he still supports that or not is an open question.
Because Fred has always been against taxpayer-funding of abortions and supported parental notification laws.
If there are restrictions against abortions, and if the woman has to pay for them, abortions would decrease, don't you think? Now I support a human right amendment to the Constitution but such an idea had no way in Hades of passing a Rat Congress & a Rat President. The pro-life movement basically had to take what it could get.
Look, Fred dropped the ball here, he should have been open from the get-go. But that's not going to change my opinion of him. His voting record, and his subsequent statements affirming his support for life, is enough in my book.
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