Fred Thompson on Hannity and Colmes 5/1/07 (Live Thread)

Fox News Channel | 5/1/07 | Politicalmom

[Politicalmom]

Tuesday, May 1:

• EXCLUSIVE! Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson sits down with us tonight. Will he or won't he enter the 2008 presidential race?

[TheKidster]

Have you ever heard of Federalism? FT’s principles in this respect ensure he’ll do what prolife folks want a president to do (in the limited capacity POTUS can affect the situation) regarding abortion.

What has any R president done to abolish abortion? Bush made sure partial birth is still illegal but besides that what else can a president do? Veto federal funding of abortion. Appoint Supremes who may or may not even take a case that threatens RVW. If a presidential candidate says he supports federally funded abortions and an expansion of the murderous act then I’m definitely going to fight against that candidate. That’s all a POTUS could do to affect abortion law in this country.

[TheKidster]

I’m with you, Rudy supports infringement upon constitutionally protected natural rights, federal funding of abortion and seems to have a penchant for consolidating and taking executive power to the edge. I’m not going to support that, voting for the dem candidate in the general election would produce the same results. The only difference is the WOT but I’d rather die fighting jihadi’s than die in a dirty crappy govt. healthcare monopoly run Walter Reed style hospital, broke from taxes, and deprived of my liberty.

[doug from upland]

That is going to be one magnetic sign on each side of my car -— 24 x 18 inches.

[Mr. K]

"Alan isn’t smart enough to be afraid of Fred. He is probably fearful of Rudy still. Good! Take him by surprise!"

Alan has changed quite a bit. Hannity used to say that the sinlge question he received more than any other was how he could keep himself from reaching over and punching Colmes in the face. - I have not heard him say this in a long time. And while Alan is still WRONG (a given, as a liberal) he at least is asking some better and more reasoned and reasonable questions, that allow me to see the liberal point of view (know you enemy folks!)

I find myslef wanting to punch him less and less. Anyone else agree?

[AFPhys]

Hmmm... great idea.

I’m still holding off on my decision as to who to support, but Fred is certainly top-tier. I see no reason to consider much more quickly than Oct-Nov time frame... soon enough, and things may well shake out quite a bit more by then.

[Gelato]

Have you ever heard of Federalism? FT’s principles in this respect ensure he’ll do what prolife folks want a president to do (in the limited capacity POTUS can affect the situation) regarding abortion.

Actually, the federalist argument on abortion is something Fred Thompson rejects. He supports a confederate view on the subject, and would have the states decide the value of life.

I'm sorry, but our Constitution requires that all states respect life. To claim otherwise denies the Preamble to the Constitution and denies federalism. The entire purpose of our federalist union is to ensure justice and liberty to our posterity. No state can claim the right to kill without seceding from the union. (We fought a war on this, for goodness' sake!)

I hope Fred Thompson is educable on this subject, and will reverse his opposition to a federal role in protecting life. So far, the indications are not good, and I'm afraid his hope is avoid the subject as much as possible.

[Fawn]

Could you summize the show? Did he say he would run? Any hints from him?

[pillut48]

Doesn’t bother me, as there’s no way on God’s green earth that I would vote for Rudy. :-)

I’m just saying he’s pushing Rudy as the front leader in the race. He comments on it time and time again, he’s not subtle, and he wants Rudy to beat the dickens out of Hillary. NO MATTER WHAT.

Sean has settled for Rudy, and that’s fine. I personally love Sean and listen to his show on the radio most days, and try to catch him on Fox at night. I got no personal beef with the guy :-) it’s just that I and several others disagree with him on the Rudy business.

[Politicalmom]

Transcript:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258222,00.html

:)

[TheKidster]

Actually, the federalist argument on abortion is something Fred Thompson rejects. He supports a confederate view on the subject, and would have the states decide the value of life.

How so? It’s easy to say someone supports a “confederate” view, that’s pretty much the same as a state’s rights view unless the one labelling it confederate doesn’t agree that the fed has no business in the issue.

[Politicalmom]

That DID NOT say he wanted to remove the pro-life plank.

And actions speak louder than words.

A video of Fred Thompson answering a question about abortion policy during a televised debate during his 1992 Senate campaign has surfaced on YouTube and is being portrayed as proof that Thompson once was “pro-choice” on abortion, but those who think that’s what it shows are simplistic in their analysis.

Key phrase in Thompson’s answer is this one: “I do not believe that the federal government ought to be involved in that process.” That sentence is the summary of all he says next, and shows he is opposed to Roe v. Wade, which represented the federalization of what had been a state-level issue.

He then says he is opposed to federal funding for abortion and supports the states’ right to regulate abortion - both are federalist and pro-life positions - and he opposes the federal government criminalizing abortion. Again, a federalist answer.

Thompson’s entire answer is very “federalist” - he believes abortion policy should be a matter for states rather than the federal government.

His answer also fits within the mainstream pro-life platform. Most pro-lifers do not favor making criminals of women who have abortions, and the pro-life push to overturn Roe v. Wade would merely return the issue of abortion to a state-level issue.

And, finally, Thompson’s voting record in 8 years in the Senate is solidly pro-life.

- Bill Hobbs, Elephant Biz, April 24, 2007

http://www.elephantbiz.com/2007/04/is_fred_thompson_prolife.html

*

Fred wonders how it all got started:

In the days since Thompson allowed that he was thinking about running for president, his views on abortion have come under scrutiny. Thompson finds the news reports from his first run for Senate perplexing.

“I have read these accounts and tried to think back 13 years ago as to what may have given rise to them. Although I don’t remember it, I must have said something to someone as I was getting my campaign started that led to a story. Apparently, another story was based upon that story, and then another was based upon that, concluding I was pro-choice.”

But, he adds: “I was interviewed and rated pro-life by the National Right to Life folks in 1994, and I had a 100 percent voting record on abortion issues while in the Senate.”

Darla St. Martin, associate executive director of National Right to Life, supports Thompson on those claims. She traveled to Tennessee in 1994 to meet with him. “I interviewed him and on all of the questions I asked him, he opposed abortion,” she told the American Spectator’s Philip Klein.

Thompson says he thinks Roe v. Wade is bad law and should be overturned, but he says he does not support a Human Life Amendment.

- Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, From the April 23, 2007 issue

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/528aylls.asp

*

LifeNews.com on Fred:

“Thompson accumulated a strong pro-life voting record in Congress, and said over the weekend that he supports overturning Roe v. Wade.”

- Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com, March 12, 2007

http://www.lifenews.com/nat2978.html

*

A reality check on Fred and life:

“He [Fred Thompson] IS pro-life!”

- Doug Hagen, TheRealityCheck.org, march, 2007

http://www.therealitycheck.org/GuestColumnist/dhagin032007.htm

*

Fred Thompson on the Issues:

Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions. (Oct 1999)
Voted YES on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Fred_Thompson.htm#Abortion

*

Fred Thompson SenateMatch/VoteMatch questionnaire response:

STRONGLY OPPOSES topic 1: “Abortion is a woman’s right”

http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Fred_Thompson_SenateMatch.htm

*

Don’t believe the lies:

Both sides of the aisle are trying to figure out a way to derail the [Fred Thompson] campaign...[so don’t let them fool you into thinking Fred Thompson is anything other than 100% pro-life!]

- JB Williams, MichNews.com, Apr 11, 2007

http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_16415.shtml

*

Do not be deceived:

Today, the Evangelicals for Mitt operation has spent its time attacking conservative Republican presidential candidates, most recently former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and unannounced candidate, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.

Thompson, who has made it clear that he does not support Roe v. Wade, and who was certified as pro-life by the National Right to Life Committee back in 1994, has continued to state that he is pro-life. But the Evangelicals for Mitt, using research provided by the Romney campaign, has been putting out information on its blog that Thompson, as well as other Republican Senate candidates, were not.

The Romney campaign has targeted Thompson as a serious threat to its ongoing political survival. Recent polls that have just begun including Thompson in surveys show him running ahead of Romney in Iowa, without his having spent a dime.

National Right to Life says Thompson has been reliably pro-life and his voting record sustains that view.

- Bill Hobbs, Elephant Biz, March 26, 2007

http://www.elephantbiz.com/2007/03/independent_blog_has_ties_to_r.html

*

National Right to Life Committee on Fred Thompson:

“This morning, I cited reports being promoted by the pro-Romney blog Evangelicals for Mitt suggesting that Fred Thompson ran his two campaigns for Senate in Tennessee as a pro-choicer. Not so, National Right to Life executive co-director Darla St. Martin just told me.

St. Martin said that she went down to Tennessee in 1994 to speak with Thompson personally when he first ran for Senate, and that she determined he was against abortion.

‘I interviewed him and on all of the questions I asked him, he opposed abortion,’ St. Martin said. She told me that the group went on to support him in that election, and his record reinforced for her that their determination was correct.

‘He has a consistent voting record that is pro-life,’ she said.

On the NRLC website, they archive their congressional ratings back to 1997, so they include six of his eight years in the Senate. Thompson took the pro-life position on every vote he cast on the abortion issue...”

http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp?BlogID=6017

*

Pro-abortion NARAL gives Fred an “F”:

“NARAL also rated nine other Republicans... Based on their abortion rights stance, the following Republicans received a grade of ‘F’: ...Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee...”

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Try=No&Page=\Politics\archive\200007\POL20000714a.html

*

NRLC says Fred is [still] pro-life:

“With 54% of the vote, pro-life former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander (R) won the seat of retiring PRO-LIFE Senator Fred Thompson.”

http://www.nrlc.org/news/2002/NRL11/senate.html

*

Pro-abortion Planned Parenthood can’t find a thing to like about Fred:

“Listed below is the name, state and party of each of these senators along with Planned Parenthood’s rating of them.

Name State Party PP rating...
Fred Thompson TN R 0% “

http://www.all.org/stopp/rr0111.htm

[Politicalmom]

The last L and O episode is May 18.

[Sun]

“I believe he and his first wife were divorced even before he ran for the Senate. I think he met Jeri when he was in DC. She worked in some sort of capacity for the Republican party, or some group associated with the party.”

Thanks.

[Hostage]

I am not sure where or how you got your education but a ‘confederate view’ is not FDT’s view on abortion. His view is a federalist view.

The confederacy was borne not so much from arguments involving state rights but from the right to secede. If the confederate states had never seceded there would have never been a ‘confederacy’. The Civil War was not fought over state rights but over the act of secession. Arguments of state rights punctuated the rhetoric of secession but such arguments were not the cause of the creation of a confederacy.

Any political view that espouses limitation of federal government powers to those enumerated in the US Constitution is aligned with a federalist perspective.

Thompson is a federalist. His view on Roe vs. Wade is a federalist view.

[Fawn]

Thanks....

CLICK ME

[Gelato]

Here is an illustration.

GARRY MAC, MODERATOR: Mr. Thompson, do you support or oppose laws that prohibit abortions for convenience?

FRED THOMPSON, R-U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: I do not believe that the federal government ought to be involved in that process.

Substitute "slavery" for "abortions" in that Q&A. It is a confederate position. The very idea that states have the authority to infringe on God-given rights is a violation of the premise of our federal union:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This Preamble is the pact that binds the states together. Notice that there is no such pact in the Articles of Confederation, where states were only loosely allied. The founders rejected that weak confederacy in favor of a federalist system, in which no state could deny life to the innocent.

Fred doesn't accept this federalist argument.

[Gelato]

That DID NOT say he wanted to remove the pro-life plank.

He hardly endorsed it.

U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson says he seldom hears about abortion in campaign travels throughout Tennessee and hopes the issue is downplayed at the Republican National Convention. The Tennessee Republican, a pro-choice defender in a party with an anti-abortion tilt, is preparing for next week's convention in San Diego. He said the party must avoid distracting issues and focus on electing Bob Dole as president. "We need to concentrate on what brings us together and not what divides us," Thompson said in an interview with The Tennessean published Tuesday. Thompson said he opposes making early-term abortions a crime, as some Republicans would like to do with a constitutional amendment. "But I don't think you should bolt on one issue. I'm still not convinced platforms are a good idea. We know what we believe in and I don't think we need to write it all down in a document," Thompson said. (AP, 8/6/96)

Do I believe Thompson would fight to remove the pro-life plank from the 2008 platform? No, he's not stupid.

But I do believe his past indifference toward abortion is significant, and is a throwback to the pre-Reagan and McCain-wing of the party that he does represent.

What should our response to that be? Should we let him treat the pro-life agenda as a mere litmus test he has already met, and move on to the things he would rather talk about? Or should we demand more, actually push to outlaw abortion, and thereby urge Fred to move to the right?

Fred's not going to lead us there. We have to lead him.

[Gelato]

See #516.

[spectre]

My tone? LOL.

I'm well aware that Hannity is/was a Border Hawk.

I'm also aware that the potential GOP POTUS candidates seem to be soft on that issue while favoring Bush's CIR (amnesty) and Sean is solidly behind one of those people .

Can you guess who it is??

sw

[SuziQ]

Yeah, there's a boatload of libbies out there. BUT never discount the conservatives who lurk on the sidelines, living their lives without immersion in the political cesspool that is Washington D.C. Everyday Joes and Joannes who are doing what they do, trying to take care of their families, trying to do 'the right thing' when it comes to voting.

We also need to think about the possibility that Fred Thompson could bring out people who may not have voted for years, because they didn't have anyone who particularly interested them! Remember, only about half of the people who CAN vote, actually DO vote. Bringing more voters on board, and having them voting for Fred, would be a vey good thing! This is where the 'boots on the ground', and 'watercooler punditry' will mean a lot. Fred supporters armed with information will be a great resource, and can reach potentially more people than even TV, press or radio ads.