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.
We southerns are too stoopid to knowed what that mean’s, wonder how that darned Fred done got in thar?
You take on an argument that gets smacked down, and instead of dropping it you add more crap.
Do you even know what the American Enterprise Institute is?
The biggest problems we have are two fold. A porous border and lack of internal enforcement. Seal the border and we can concentrate resources on deporting the internals. As it is now, we do a million deportations a year, but 80% are caught at the border region and we are only cathcing 50% of those sneaking across.
You cannot bail water from the ship fast enough if the torpedo hole is letting more in.
It has been brought up before, I think he has to wait till September or August, because if he announces now they can’t show the re-runs and his co-workers would lose money.
If I remember correctly the only alterations were minor and had to do with the difference between the print and online version of the article - however, I may be incorrect this. I believe they removed the quote about remembering Thompson from a cowboy movie or something like that. Anyway, I know that they did not retract the main charge and now the law firm has found a billing statement which corroborates the gist of the story. So, it seems like it is the Thompson campaign and not the LA times which has had to backtrack. I will admit, however, that I did not read the entirety of all of the LA times articles which were linked so please let me know if I have missed a major retraction on their part.
Reagan won in 1980 because the voters had doubts about whether or not the country could survive another four years of Jimmy Carter. He won in 1984 because he was responsible for making Americans proud to be Americans again.
Hunter isn't a repeat of Reagan. I see Hunter as more of a repeat of the Goldwater election results. He's too easy for the Democrats to paint as a right-wing extremist.
Sounds about the same to me as Chief Justice Roberts’ work for gay-rights types in Romer vs. Evans — i.e., a non-event.
I've already seen both South Park and Big Love so I already know all about that stuff.
I'm not big into doctrinal litmus tests.
You’re probably correct.
I don’t have “a” candidate at this point, all I have are my definite NO’s.
First if they are displacing so many Americans from their jobs, where are the numbers? Historically low unemployment does not jibe with vast numbers of displaced Americans.
I never said that they did not take from the system, indeed I mentioned that, and that it is because of the liberal approach of said system. Take it away and they would still be here.
If you think they are parasitic now, wait tillo it’s announced that we are coming after them.
I think in real terms their benefit is higher than you realize. I understand your idea of these legitimate companies being criminal enterprises, indeed they are breaking the law in this regard, but I know for a fact that in many cases it is not to displace American’s, but out of need, there was nobody else willing to apply. Doing the jobs Americans won’t do is not a cute statement but a reality. Blame the aforementioned welfare for that. There are plenty of American poor that are happier sitting down than working.
The reality is there will be no contact with law enforcement if we drive them under ground and a fence will do nothing for the ones already here. We have to deal with that reality.
You say that huge sums of money will solve the big problems. I think you will find that most American’s will not see it as cost effective to expend large sums over 20 years to kick out these folks. The increase in petty and viloent crime alone will be too much. It will be cheaper to just get them worked in and locking everything down.
On that I would agree.
“Except for the fact that so far the facts which have come out are substantiating the LA times story rather than discrediting it.”
You posted that the records were found so that means it is true.
Dan Rather’s records turned out to not be facts but “rather” phoney.
We can go around and around. The fact is that he lobbied 20 billable hours-a pittance, 1% of a lobbiest’s yearly billable hours. And that’s over 2 or 3 years. 3.3 hours was listed as lobbying someone in the administration other than John Sununu—the big cheese lobby-ee.
Make of it what you will. Since, on top of the above, it’s all 14 years ago, what you make won’t fill a thimble.
But wale away.
If these are the type of people that are a threat to increase their criminal activity than maybe the threat is even greater than I think. Maybe we should do what Eisenhower did and systematically round them all up and ship them out. You are beginning to convince me this might be the only way.
So, what you are saying is that, despite claims to the contrary that have been made by some, Duncan Hunter doesn't have a whole lot of clout in Congress, despite serving for 27 years... I looked at the bills he has sponsored over his career, and he really didn't start offering substantive legislation until the last 2 Congresses. His record of success on that legislation has been spotty at best.
I am not opposed to Hunter in any way, but if the Hunter supporters are going to point out every potential flaw in Thompson, I think it only fair to do the same for Hunter. I don't see Thompson as the perfect candidate - only as the most conservative candidate with a realistic chance to be elected.
I agree entirely.
What would you do for your starving child?
Fortunately many of us have the skills and opportunity to survive and most to survive well.
As an aside I have met several illegals, though I did not necessarily realize it at the time. Many are hard working individuals who were looking for a chance. I am not saying what they did was right but maybe a bit more Christian approach would come in handy here. Indeed I see many as staying but being driven deeper in to a cash driven economy and not robbery and other such crimes. That would be of no benefit to our national interest.
I know about the 1950's round up. Apples and oranges. It took them 6 months to get to just a little over 100,000. Another 1/2 million fled fearing prosecution. That won't happen this time, they know how to hide and there are way too many willing to help here in this country, at least right now. Like I said the “round ‘em up and ship ‘em out:” approach just won’t work at this scale in the day and age.
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...
Presidential Tracking Poll In the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson ticked up a couple of points to 26% while former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani remains in second at 21%. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Arizona Senator John McCain are tied at 11%. (see history). Mike Huckabee is favored by 4%, five other candidates split 6%, and 21% are undecided. The five other candidates, mentioned by name in the survey, are Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson, and Sam Brownback.
I recall that argument when Fredheads stood shoulder to shoulder with Duncanistas cutting Rudy off at the knees.
Oh—the desolation! “...five other candidates split 6%.” Traction...traction...where’s my traction?
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