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Fred and Terri tar baby dailies...

This is earlier and comes from Jill Stanek with commentary by Fr. Pavone on You Tube. Click on the link below to see his commentary.

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I blogged earlier today that Fred Thompson lost any hope of my vote on Meet the Press yesterday by saying he opposed a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, also a plank of the Republican platform.

Thompson also spoke incoherently on states outlawing abortions, saying,
"[Y]ou can't have a law that cuts off an age group or something like that, which potentially would take young, young girls in extreme situations and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail to do that." I have no idea what he was getting at.

Well, Bobby Schindler just emailed me that Thompson additionally answered wrong about his sister Terri Schindler Schiavo's case. I found the transcript and will post it on page 2.

Bobby alerted me that Fr. Frank Pavone just posted a YouTube video about Terri and politicians like Thompson who say Congress should not have involved itself in her slow murder by starvation and dehydration. Here's FP's video. Watch it before reading the Thompson transcript.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meE-jfKCvbs

Meet the Press partial transcript, November 4, 2008
Tim Russert interviews Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson

MR. RUSSERT: In March of '05, the Congress, the president signed legislation allowing a federal judge to intervene, to perhaps re-insert a feeding tube in the famous Terri Schiavo case.
MR. THOMPSON: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: You've spoken about that, about the death of your own daughter. Your view is it is a family's decision to make whether to insert or remove a feeding tube.
MR. THOMPSON: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: And that should...
MR. THOMPSON: And then, and then, obviously, in consultation with their doctor.
MR. RUSSERT: But there should be no laws involved?
MR. THOMPSON: No. I've not said that. What - I mean, you, you got to put your lawyer hat back on, you know, with this most personal, should be nonlegal consideration. If there is a family dispute, then there're courts in, in every state in the nation that you can take a dispute like that to. I said the federal government should not be involved.
MR. RUSSERT: But the government should not have gotten involved in Terri Schiavo?
MR. THOMPSON: No. Now, you know, keep in mind, now, the, the government didn't come in and say "You got to do this; you got to do that." It gave federal court jurisdiction. Federal court didn't need jurisdiction, in my opinion. These are kinds of things where the, the, the - well, you mentioned it myself, my own personal situation. Let's just say you never know when you make the right decision, what - it, it wasn't totally comparable, but it was, it was the same, it was the same general end-of-life kind of consideration. And I, I - I've resisted and, and resent, frankly, the political football thatss been made out of all that, and, and it's unfortunate. The less government, the better.

Except the whole point of the government and laws are to provide guidelines and protect us.

Thompson came down wrong on Terri, too

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Fred and Terri tar baby dailies 2...

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Sitting in for Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham gave Jeri Thompson a powder puff interview on Tuesday night but it won’t be enough to save her husband, Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson. “Fred Dead?” was a topic on Brit Hume’s Fox News show, which aired earlier in the evening. Thompson is dead politically mainly because of his flip-flops and incredible lack of knowledge and sensitivity on the right-to-life issue.

Stephanopoulos Tricks Fred Thompson (Image: Wenn)

In contrast to Thompson’s descent into oblivion, headlines in Wednesday newspapers are proclaiming that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is on the rise, surging past Thompson and Rudy Giuliani to second place in a poll of likely Republican Iowa Caucus voters. He is only four points behind Mitt Romney.

Gary Langer of the ABC News polling unit says that “The surge for Huckabee is remarkable in size and intensity alike. He’s attracted not just support but enthusiastic support, from core Republican groups including conservatives, evangelicals and strong abortion opponents.”

There can be no doubt that Thompson’s flip-flops on the right to life and the Terri Schiavo case, as examined in several of my columns, have been extremely detrimental to his candidacy. He is registering at only four percent in New Hampshire, even behind Ron Paul.

The latest installment of this seemingly never-ending saga was Thompson’s November 18 interview with George Stephanopoulos, in which the former Senator said “I didn’t know that,” but concurred when told by Stephanopoulos that Terri Schiavo, who was starved to death in 2005 by her estranged husband, was “brain dead” and that autopsies had proven that. The implication was that she didn’t deserve to live.

Thompson’s exact comments were “I didn’t know that, you know, at the time that was all kicking around and everybody was asking my opinion based on what was in the newspaper.”

Perhaps this is a big part of the problem. Thompson gives opinions based on what’s in the newspaper, without doing adequate research or checking out the facts for himself. Making matters worse, he seemed to take Stephanopoulos’s word for it that Schiavo was brain dead.

The truth is that Schiavo was brain damaged not brain dead and the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation has asked Stephanopoulos to correct the record. Considering the lack of standards in the major media these days, it’s doubtful that ABC News will issue a correction. But Thompson, if he wants to have any credibility left on the pro-life issue, should quickly do so.

Terri’s brother Bobby says the “brain dead” comment is not only patently false but offensive.

In a news release, Bobby Schindler said, “Brain death is an authentic diagnosis, not some catch phrase that should be loosely used based upon a ‘summary of widespread response’ or opinions that have been written about my sister. We are requesting that the media take a few minutes to research the facts regarding Terri’s case and, more importantly, her condition. In doing so they would learn that not one doctor ever diagnosed Terri as being ‘brain-dead.’ This includes those who wrote her autopsy report. All of this information is easily available and accessible.”

Schindler added, “This has been a major problem with the mainstream media―not just that they are writing that Terri was brain dead, but how they continue to inaccurately and irresponsibly report blatant falsehoods regarding my sister’s condition.”

The foundation’s press release noted that “Schiavo’s autopsy itself proved that, prior to her death, she was never dying, was physically healthy and would have lived a long life had she not been dehydrated over a period of two weeks. Furthermore, the autopsy was unable to determine whether or not Terri was actually in a persistent vegetative state, as her estranged husband, Michael Schiavo, and his attorney claimed in their quest to have her killed.”

Unfortunately, Laura Ingraham blew the opportunity to ask Thompson’s wife Jeri about these matters when she guest-hosted The O’Reilly Factor on November 20. Ingraham, a fervent right-to-lifer, highlighted the Thompson endorsement by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) but failed to question the candidate’s flip-flops or record. Ingraham commented, “He also got the big endorsement from the National Right to Life to which Mike Huckabee, who considers himself strongly pro-life, said he was taken aback by that which I found interesting.” She went on to ask Jeri Thompson about managing her involvement in the campaign as a wife and mother.

The phrase “considers himself strongly pro-life” should apply to Thompson, especially after his flip-flops and controversial claims over the last several weeks. Huckabee wasn’t the only one taken aback by the NRLC’s endorsement of Thompson, especially in view of the fact that Thompson had voted for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform measure that would have muzzled the views of NRLC. This is the issue that gave Thompson only an 86 percent pro-life voting record. The only “interesting” part of this entire controversy is the failure by Ingraham to follow-up on these critical matters. Viewers and listeners were depending on her to help set the record straight.

But some pro-lifers have followed up. Prolifeblogs.com commented, “Clearly the National Right to Life Committee attempted to tutor Fred Thompson between his November 4 interview on Meet the Press and November 18 interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. But NRLC failed. On three major pro-life issues, Thompson continued to frankly stink. And on one he dug his hole deeper.”

This was mainly a reference to Thompson’s claim to Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” that the Schiavo case was an end-of-life issue and his subsequent “clarification” to NRLC that she deserved the benefit of the doubt and should have been allowed to live. He seemed to reverse himself again in the interview with Stephanopoulos.

Despite these controversies, including his support for McCain-Feingold, it is now being reported that Thompson is telling Iowa voters in a direct mail piece that he is the candidate with the “consistent” and 100 percent pro-life voting record.

If voters buy that whopper, they’re brain dead.

Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media.

George Stephanopoulos Tricks Fred Thompson

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