Glad I'm not the only one here who caught it!
Posted on 07/07/2007 9:54:02 PM PDT by pissant
Imagine you're the district attorney character on, say, television's long-running "Law and Order." You have five witnesses who say they either saw the accused, or learned contemporaneously, that the accused did the alleged bad thing.
Then imagine the accused's defense is essentially a variant of "I don't recall. There's no paper trail. Nope, I didn't do it." And the accused has a friendly witness who at first doesn't recollect if the accused did the bad thing, then ratchets up to "It didn't happen."
If you're the DA, you probably still think you've got a case, right? Maybe you'll just let the jury decide.
That appears to be where we're at in case of The People v. Fred Thompson, the people being family-planning types who say they hired Thompson to lobby the first Bush White House to overturn an anti-abortion executive order. The story was broken by Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times.
Thompson, the former Tennessee Republican senator who appears to be running for president even though he hasn't yet officially announced, says, through a spokesperson, he didn't do the lobbying at all back in 1991. That's a surprise to the family-planning folks who say that's exactly what they hired him to do back during his Washington lobbyist days, to specifically lobby then-White House chief of staff John Sununu.
This matters, of course, because Thompson has been wooing the anti-abortion activists and social conservatives so important to winning the Republican nomination. They're on the jury.
If this story gains legs, that increases Thompson's challenge in winning over that group. If the people who recall signing on Thompson to lobby the first Bush White House are seen as more credible, Thompson will not only suffer with those opposed to abortion but also more generallly because his truthfulness will become
(Excerpt) Read more at weblogs.chicagotribune.com ...
The chutpah of the mainstream media, Weaseldom, is mouth-dropping.
The only target of such malicious tripe is the Conservative base.
But the loyal and inspired base of Thompson will instead take down the House of Weaseldom.
Ask Dan Rather and CBS news about us.
Chicago Tribune, you Communist mutherphuckers, you are next.
Anti-Thompson Campaign By Hillary Donors
An interesting question came to me from CQ reader Adam W regarding the Los Angeles Times' story about Fred Thompson and his supposed work for the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association in 1991. The only evidence of this work comes from a copy of the NFPRHA's board minutes from September 14, 1991 that claims that the group had hired "Fred Thompson, Esq. as counsel to aid us in discussions with the administration" to end the rule barring abortion counseling at clinics that received federal funds. A couple of the group's principals swear that they hired Thompson; Thompson denies working for them, and the man whom Fred would have had to meet categorically states that he never discussed the gag rule with Fred at all.
Now a new bit of indirect evidence has been found. Arent Fox brought Thompson into the firm to be "of counsel" in 1991 for his expertise in their lobbying business, including the representation of foreign governments. Anyone involved in such lobbying has to register with the Foreign Agent Registration Unit at the Department of Justice. Arent Fox filed its registration for its lobbyists, complete with the listings of all its lobbyists -- including their start and termination dates.
Take a look at registrant #2661 in the FARA search system (unfortunately, the results are unlinkable). Fred D. Thompson, according to their records, starts as a lobbyist for foreign business on 10/10/1991 and terminates on 9/17/1993, which is when he decided to run for the remainder of Al Gore's term in the Senate. That gives some indication that Thompson started lobbying for Arent in October and not September of 1991. It's possible that Arent had limited Thompson to lobbying for domestic clients until October, but that seems rather odd, given their desire to have him on board as a major attraction for DC lobbying.
I'd be interested to know when he started lobbying for Arent -- with an exact date. This implies that Thompson wouldn't have been available to the NFPRHA in Septemer 1991, and make the document on which the Times based its entire story somewhat suspect.
I was JUST about to post Morrissey’s piece here to respond to the thread:)
All of the so-called "witnesses" that just "learned contemporaneously" of an act would not be witnesses. Rather they would be giving hearsay evidence, and would be laughed out of court. This is exactly the case with this matter. Some pro-abortionist made an unsubstantiated claim about Thompson, and a few started repeating it.
This charge against Thompson comes from the left. Why are conservatives repeating it? It doesn't have legs.
It isn’t being repeated by Conservatives.
It is being repeated by weasels, aka pissant.
Glad I'm not the only one here who caught it!
I guess the only way he can build up Duncan Hunter is to tear down Thompson. Kind'a makes Hunter look small.
;) Exactly!
Note how many times [at least twice] on this thread that pissant has said, “Fred’s my #2.” Multiply that by all of the other anti-Fred threads he’s posted, where he’s made the same “Fred’s my #2 guy” comment. At this point, it comes across as “mule fritters.” He posts that over and over to protect himself.
Pissant is a hatchet-man—or a weasel, if you prefer.
And John Sununu said it never happened.
Fredipedia: The Definitive Fred Thompson Reference
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Right. We'll just ignore his 100 percent pro life voting record.
The problem with this argument is that FDT did not come up through the ranks of aspiring actors, playing bit parts hoping to get "discovered". His first part was playing himself in "Marie" in 1985 - and his filmography shows every TV or movie appearance since then. No westerns or cowboy roles in the list...
“I’d be interested to know when he started lobbying for Arent — with an exact date.”
Without that information, I don’t see how the information you posted contradicts the story.
No legs - story debunked already several times.... but if you tell a lie often enough...
2ndDivisionVet and Mobile Vulgus are not members of the "RG" fan club, they are your fellow Thompson supporters. And I don't see what Rudy would have to gain by posting threads accusing Hillary of masterminding the latest bit of dirt on Fred, which is the linked posts you listed do.
So now when your own supporters post threads trying to elist sympathy for your candidate, it's "Rudy Giuliani's" plot.
You might want to take that up with your fellow Fred Thompson supporters and tell them to stop resurrecting the story. Not my fault they keep posting threads saying "Hillary" is out digging up dirt on him.
Looks like your fellow FredHeads are to blame for most of the Fred Thompson/abortion lobbying stories that keep popping up on FR. In fact, I don't think a single thread on this story was posted by "RG" supporters as you claim. (Most of them have been banned by JimRob monthes ago for trying stunts like that)
But oh well, don't let facts get in the way.
And John Sununu vouched for the fact he knew David Souter personally and was absolutely, 100% certain Souter was a staunch constructionist whose supreme court nomination would be a "Home run" for conservatives.
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