Posted on 11/04/2007 6:37:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I had said Fred Thompson could do him a lot of good if he passed “the Russert primary” with flying colors.
His campaign had been dismissing the Washington press corps, and implicitly running against the media, refusing to do the things candidates traditionally do (enter early, do five events a day, appear at the New Hampshire debate instead of the Tonight Show). But every once in a while a Washington media institution really does matter, and Meet the Press is one of them. Simply because Tim Russert, without commercial interruption, will throw hardballs and curveballs for a solid half hour, and standard delaying tactics won’t work. Also, his research staff can find every awkward quote from 1974 that every candidate dreads. Generally, a candidate who can handle Meet the Press well can handle just about any other live interview.
This morning I had caught a brief snippet – his discussion of Iraq - and thought he was striking out. I thought the reference to “generals we respect” was so odd, I wondered if he had forgotten David Petraeus’s name.
Having just watched it on the DVR, I thought it was a very, very solid performance. Ground rule double.
My initial shallow thought was that Thompson still looks a bit on the gaunt side. Then, during the interview:
“You’ve lost a lot of weight. Is it health related?”
“Coming from you, Tim, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Ouch. Thompson says no, it’s not health related, it’s just that his wife has him on a diet to watch his cholesterol. He says he had additional tests for his Lymphoma in September and was the results were all clear.
Every once in a while Thompson slipped up - I think he suggested that oil was selling at “nah-eight hundred dollars a barrel”, and I’m wary of his quoted statistic that car bombs in Iraq are down 80 percent – but overall, Thompson was measured, modest, serious, and completely at ease. After a couple of debates, it’s odd to watch a man not trying to squeeze his talking points into an answer, and instead speaking in paragraphs, conversational and informed.
Jen Rubin wrote, “He does not answer questions linearly with a direct answer to the question but rather talks about the subject matter. Some find this thoughtful and other think he is vamping and unfocused.” His talk on Iran was a perfect example, in that Thompson’s position isn’t terribly different from the rest of the field – he doesn’t want to use force, but he’ll keep that option open - but as he talks at length about the risks and benefits and factors that would go into a military strike, the audience, I think, will feel reassuring that if Thompson needs to face that decision, he will have weighed each option carefully.
That voice is fatherly, reassuring, calm. The contrast to Hillary couldn’t be sharper.
I’m going to say ‘well-briefed,’ but I know that will just spur one of the Thompson Associates to call me to tell me that’s not a sign of others briefing him, that’s a sign of Thompson’s own reading and study of the issues.
I was about to say that he was almost too conversational, that he could have used one quip or pithy summation at his views, and then, finally, at the tail end of his question on Schiavo, he summed up, “the less government, the better.”
I’m hearing that David Brody listened to the section on abortion and Thompson’s expression of federalism in this area, and has concluded, “all he needs now is to buy the gun that shoots him in the foot.” Look, if Fred Thompson isn’t pro-life enough for social conservatives, then nobody short of Mike Huckabee is. If Huckabee gets the nomination, great, I’d love to see Hillary Clinton go up against the Republican mirror-image of her husband’s rhetorical skills. But it feels like the past few months have been an escalating series of vetoes from various factions within the GOP. I’ve seen more amiable compromises on the United Nations Security Council.
Let me lay it out for every Republican primary voter. You support the guy you want, you rally for him, you write some checks, you vote in the primaries… and maybe your guy wins, maybe he loses. If the guy who beats your guy is half a loaf, you shrug your shoulders, hope your guy is his running mate, and get ready for the general. Life goes on.
If you consider placing a higher value on women's lives than on men's to be "emotional" then we definitely do disagree. Though I admittedly have nothing concrete to disagree with since you didn't bother to explain your Taliban allegation or anything else about the post to which I was responding.
The goal of Cultural Marxists is to remove all true human liberties. To accomplish that, they need to hook the citizenry on false freedoms as a diversion. When the concept of liberty becomes watered down....in fact, corrupted....by things such as abortion, homosexual acts, pornography, and so forth, people become less likely to notice when our true liberties are taken away.
The late Sam Francis coined the term anarcho-tyranny to describe what the West is becoming. We're a society where homosexuals can prance down the street in g-strings, in front of children and families, but where someone objecting to their behavior could get arrested for "hate speech". The idea is to crush legitimate rights while elevating destructive activities in their place. Government grows exponentially more powerful and centralized when this occurs.
Even Ross Perot has more Charisma than George Bush Sr. And that was part of the equation that lost. Ross Perot was certainly not more conservative than George Bush Sr. They did have a disagreement on Trade policy. George Sr. ran a lackluster campaign. Ross ran a vigorous one. In any event, we will have to muster 61 million votes plus on this election, and the Democrats are motivated, while we are divided. Fred is not the man to unite our party, or this nation. Especially when you compare him with Rudy, Mitt or McCain, all of which are energetic stand outs.
Yes, exactly! However, not everyone believes that a fetus is a somebody I happen to believe it and you I'm assuming you do as well. But here's the rub, not everyone believes the same as you and I and we have to deal with that reality or we get nowhere. And our (well, not mine) efforts to use government to dictate behavioral change becomes just as off-putting as their efforts to be selfish and/or in denial.
You make a lot of assumptions considering you don't know what I am an advocate of or for.
Well, I know that you believe that homosexuality and abortion are two things that we should not be tolerant of and that both plague our society. I'll agree on one of those with you but I certainly do not see homosexuality, by itself, as a behavior we should seek to become intolerant of.
By the way, do you advocate for adoption and for providing financial incentives to mothers of the unborn who contemplate abortion? More so than your advocacy in deriding homosexuality, say?
My biggest single issue is the 2nd amendment.
Good! Mine just happens to be liberty, in general.
Having it be illegal for women to kill their children just seems logical to me.
Let's be real clear here...no one is talking about children that have already healthily exited the womb. The issue here is that some women do not view the life of a fetus as a living child or they are too selfish to admit to or acknowledge that there is life. We should encourage these women to go through with their pregnancies rather than legislating their beliefs at the federal level. Heck, you'd even be better off passing a state law that establishes a legal birth at the very moment a pregnancy is discovered, issue a valid birth certificate, and have that 'birth' be fully protected by the 14th amendment.
Have you witnessed my supposed public displays of outrage or my "piousness"?
Yes, piousness, toward homosexuals, in fact.
Are you really even typing at me or some archetype you have created?
Both. Don't we all post so that the interactive experience is shared and discussion can evolve by many participants? I know that that's one of the reasons I post.
Do you really think that allowing women to kill their children furthers the concept of liberty?
I've covered this above but forcing them to submit to beliefs that you and I happen to share when the area is a very gray one to many, is not a concept of liberty either.
Men and Women aren't free unless they don't have deal with the consequences of their actions?
And you're assuming that there are no consequences for deciding to abort? Don't you believe in Judgment Day?
Women aren't free unless they can kill their child because having it would be an big inconvienence?
I do not understand this question.
Liberty comes with responsibility it isn't freedom from responsibility.
No, it does not. Liberty comes with consequences for making inappropriate decisions, not cooperating with others, and for intruding on the liberty of others.
How freedom to murder unborn babies became a basic tenent of liberty I'll never know.
It isn't. It's a gray area where not everyone sees the same thing.
I apologize — what I meant to say is that the accessability of abortion is mandated in every state.
But overturning Roe is the way to turn this issue back to the states — that’s why Thompson wants to overturn it. A Constitutional amendment is not realistic right now — looking at the history of such amendments, they tend to bubble up from the states. So let’s return the power to ban abortion to the states, and then go from there.
Gladly — I’m happy I could help a little bit.
“Fred Thompson was the Minority Counsel, Hillary was a glorified intern.”
And no mastter what happens that’s the most she will ever be.
If you are a type who wishes to have your own personal issues be legislated using a representative government (such as condemning and banishing homosexual behavior, for instance), then you should not be surprised when that same representative government process enacts legislation runs roughshod over your ability to discriminate and make discernment's without the fear of enforced law...of course, the law was created because someone with differently held beliefs that you have had their own personal issues to be legislated!
No, we'd have just had those laws passed back around 1798 instead of just a few years ago.
Someone's views are always going to be legislated. The issue is, whose views are healthier for society (with special attention to raising children) and whose views permit the most constructive freedoms for the most people.
You still haven't cited a nation where socially liberal attitudes have led to less overall government, as opposed to more. If your reasoning made sense, then Sweden (probably the most socially liberal and "tolerant" place on earth) should be a bastion of low taxes, private gun ownership, limited government, and decentralization. Instead, it's the opposite. Ditto for San Francisco. Try going there and collecting names on a petition opposing national health care.
The more socially liberal and "tolerant" an area becomes, the bigger its government gets, the higher its taxes go, and the more centralized it becomes.
Today I finally became excited about a candidate. Go, Fred, Go!!!
We can call him Steady Freddie. He’s consistent—no waffling.
I don't know the answer and I don't speak for the gay community. I am not a member of their community. But I don't hate them or really disdain what they do, consensually and in private, either.
And what makes you so sure that many of the state laws on the books during the time of the confederacy and up until the early 1800s forbid homosexuality anyway? I don't know the answer, do you?
Someone's views are always going to be legislated.
I wish this viewpoint wasn't so prevalent and pervasive. Mr. Franklin was right, we're have not kept it!
The issue is, whose views are healthier for society (with special attention to raising children) and whose views permit the most constructive freedoms for the most people.
Certainly not the views of the libertarian! Maybe it's the views of the paternalists and the tyrannical which are the healthiest.
You still haven't cited a nation where socially liberal attitudes have led to less overall government, as opposed to more.
Define the word "liberal" properly and I'll tell you that the United States did pretty well for itself for the first eighty possibly one-hundred-forty years (with the most notable exception being the Constitution's condoning [at best an overlooking] of slavery as an institution).
Why do I need to cite countries when none of them are even economically liberalized?
If your reasoning made sense, then Sweden (probably the most socially liberal and "tolerant" place on earth) should be a bastion of low taxes, private gun ownership, limited government, and decentralization. Instead, it's the opposite.
They are not liberal, that's the problem and they're certainly not tolerant of lasseiz-faire.
The more socially liberal and "tolerant" an area becomes, the bigger its government gets, the higher its taxes go, and the more centralized it becomes.
That's because they do not remain economically liberal!
Here’s a good essay you might benefit from reading:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/004328.html
Pay special attention to the last three paragraphs. The only thing I would add to it is that Mr. Auster’s optimism regarding Britain and America would seem to have faded. The essay was written in 2001 and both nations have deteriorated a lot since then (see Auster’s more recent writings on the death of England).
What about "gay unfriendly" places or institutions? Some of the most perverted non-conscentual homosexual behavior that occurs, occurs in those societies that openly proclaim their hostilities toward homosexuality. Many young boys have been violated in places that we may not wish to talk about, places where there was an official intolerance policy toward the behavior.
And I apologize for being cranky and chewing on you. I think we’re on the same page on this.
If they behave that way in nations where they're in the closet, imagine how they'd behave outside of it.
I know Suzy.....but he did not say that.
He could have said...”of course I support a right to life amendment but I know it can’t pass.”
he argued it away with a limited federalism argument....a bit hollow for my viewpoint
You are the one who brought up murder John.
I simply responded to that and other examples.
I think the other examples ahould have been less federalized....there is no absolute right to vote in the Constitution.
But for me at least....abortion like murder would be ....should preempt.
It’s a far more serious crime to me than hate crimes or voting restrictions which as you point out did not really rise to federalizing.
but I bet Fred or no one else will say that about voting wil they?
but I bet Fred or no one else will say that about voting wil they?
Excellent point! If Fred's opposition to the Human Life Amendment was based on a true commitment to federalism, he would oppose the federal ban on literacy tests and poll taxes (in non-federal elections), as well as the federal requirement for states to provide bilingual ballots. But he won't, because the media would go ballistic.
He would also have voted against the partial birth abortion ban.
I think he's trying to have it both ways on this, and I really don't care much for that tactic.
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