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In fairness, Dobson couched his comments with many substantive qualifiers which were not reported by the MSM which wants to encourage intramural fights among conservatives. Dobson said flat out that he did not know Thompson and did not know the details of Thompson's faith but was merely not persuaded that Thompson is what Dobson regards as a Christian.

Just as there is a difference between agnosticism (the ism of those who don't KNOW whether there is a God but reject neither possibility) and atheism (the ism of those who THINK they KNOW that there is no God), so too there is a difference between KNOWING that a man is NOT a Christian and NOT KNOWING enough about the man to decide. Let us take Dr. Dobson's own careful remarks as representing Dr. Dobson's actual opinion rather than taking the MSM's distortion of Dr. Dobson's remarks as though those distortions were accurate.

The following will be a first for me: defending the UCC (to some extent). As one client who is a UCC member and another who is a UCC minister have explained it to me (neither having ever lied to me that I know of), the UCC is a CONGREGATIONAL church whose CONGREGATION's call ministers according to the religious views of the CONGREGATION, inter alia. The minister/client was born into a family belonging to an evangelical Protestant church of German ancestry that was much more evangelical than most here might suspect. His UCC church (in New England, no less) helped raise funds for Operation Rescue-style activities and defense. His church is also a very old one of several hundred years standing. He wishes that the evangelical church into which he was born had not merged with UCC. The lay client/UCC member belongs to a congregation which is socially liberal in the sense of favoring legal toleration but private disapproval of various forms of bad behavior including abortion and, perhaps, homosexual misbehavior but otherwise inclined to fiscal and military and regulatory conservatism. Most UCC congregations in their part of New England are dying remnants committed to leftist ideology generally, including more than one with homosexual or lesbian couples residing in their parsonages. Bottom line: Whatever the general reutation of a congregationalist (small or large C) denomination, one ought not to make assumptions just on the basis of the brand name. In my own Catholic Church, there is a BIG difference between an Archbishop Weakland (thank God he is retired) and a Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. Likewise, what kind of Christian Fred Thompson may be is determined by, well, the qualities of Fred Thompson. My betting is that he is near infinitely better than Weakland but not quite at the level of Bruskewitz. If he is anywhere near the level of the aforementioned UCC pro-life pro-family evangelical minister/client, that is certainly good enough for me.

Fair Opinion: Please note that this post is NOT Rudy Bashing but seeks to set the record straight. I don't support Rudy other than for Attorney General but nothing here addresses him, dissents from him or detracts from him. I do support Thompson at this point and for the foreseeable future but that is positive and not negative.