Fred Breaks the Mold. Fred Thompson's response to the PhonyFred web site was a breath of fresh air for both the Republican and Democratic primary campaigns. There are a lot of good reasons why candidates on both sides have been avoiding the whispering campaigns, rumor-mongering, and lying that characterizes the KarlRovian "politics of repulsion." Well, it's repulsive and, even worse, it's not working any more.
As a result, however, the campaigns on both sides have been unnecessarily tame. Because no 2 candidates like Barack Obama and Mitt Romney (or John McCain) haven't been willing to go after the leaders, Hillary and Giuliani have gotten inappropriately easy rides for a crucial presidential election.
But the Thompson campaign's response indicates that the good times might be over. Thompson's spokesman Tod Harris not only criticized the PhonyFred site as "high-tech gutter politics" but he then went on to aim a stake at the heart of the Romney campaign.
This latest episode only serves to prove what many voters are already figuring out: Mitt Romney will do anything, say anything, smear any opponent and flip flop on any position in order to win.
It will be great to see what the Thompson guys have to say about Giuliani when they get a chance.
Two Steps Backwards. Of course, it wasn't a totally good day for Fred. Thompson also admitted today that he wasn't a churchgoer. No surprise there. Why would a good-timing, skirt-chasing, divorced, former lobbyist be wasting his time in church when he could spend his hangover time watching "NFL Game Day?"
And as an atheist myself, I have to emphasize that I have no problem with Fred's choices for Sunday activities. But that's not going to fly with the people on the religious right and Fred's going to score lots of hypocrisy points by saying that he's "right with God" anyway. It's hard to believe that there's going to be much excitement on the religious right for a Fred Thompson general election campaign.
But maybe they hate Hillary t-h-a-t much.
Altogether, another bad day to be a Republican.
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21 comments:
The Petraeus Gambit? The only reason that this dog-and-pony show happened was because your Democrats passed the legislation demanding it. Trying to play it off that this was some kind of vaudeville act set up by the administration is beyond the point of being unserious.
As for your view of the primaries, you ought to limit yourself to analyizing your own party, as you clearly have no knowledge of The Other.
I wonder when/if the other Hsu will drop on Saint Hillary?
Moving On from Petraeus - So do you agree with the Betray Us ad. How does it feel to essentially call the CG of the American forces, while at war, a traitor?
Why does Fred bother you so much? Was it the skirt chasing when he was single? That he was a lawyer during Watergate? Lobbyist? Actor? You speak of him as though he is patently unqualified and unserious, yet offer nothing to support that. This is the second post about him where you make assertions, and assume that everyone will just agree with your characterization.
Why don't you view other through your lens of love?
where you make assertions, and assume that everyone will just agree
Isn't that the way of progressivism anyway?
Assuming is a bit less bothersome than insisting I suppose.
Indeed, another bad year to be a Republican. '06 did them no favors and '07 makes '06 look good.
Sen Mike Gravel has asserted that Sen Clinton is all hype and no substance. He is wrong. However, when that same description is applied to Fred Thompson I see exactly the phenomenon Gravel sough to, and failed to hang around Hillary's neck.
Who is Thompson? A b-class actor on a popular show. Former GOP US Senator from Tennessee. That's about it.
There may be a military record of which I am unaware but essentially the has created a flutter about this man because the current crop of GOP Presidential hopefuls are so unbelievably lame. "Big-Fish-In-A-Small-Polluted-Pond-Syndrome." That's what Thompson is.
I found this at msnbc.com:
By Holly Bailey
Newsweek
June 25, 2007 issue
"- Fred Thompson has a gift for knowing just what to say to anyone, in any situation. In 1998, when Thompson was a Republican senator and a single man about town, New York socialite Georgette Mosbacher invited him to accompany her on an overseas trip. Thompson couldn't go, and summoned the full measure of his Tennessee charm in letting her down. 'I am sitting here with a long face and broken heart as I contemplate sunsets on the Mediterranean, which I will not see,' he wrote to Mosbacher on his official Senate stationery. 'We must remember the unspoken vow that all United States senators take upon entering the Senate: I shall have no money, and I shall have no fun. I, of course regarding myself as an unconquerable soul, am still determined to break the second part of that vow.'"
"Intimate correspondence like this usually doesn't see light until long after a politician is dead and gone, or at least done with politics for good. Thompson apparently believed he had forever traded Washington for Hollywood when he agreed to put his eight years of Senate records, including personal correspondence, in a public archive at the University of Tennessee. The papers, which have gone largely unnoticed, offer an unusual glimpse at his life as a Washington fixture, and clues about how he might lead as a president—hints that might not please conservative voters who are intrigued by him but who know little about him."
"Now some Republicans, underwhelmed with the current lineup of 2008 contenders, have latched onto him as something of a political messiah, a latter-day Ronald Reagan who can lead their party out of the wilderness."
"Thompson built his first Senate campaign, in 1994, on a typical theme: bringing change to Washington. He tried to stay clear of the culture wars...But no Republican running in the South could avoid the inevitable litmus-test question—where did he stand on abortion?"
Thompson was more moderate on abortion than most Republican candidates. In his archive, there are several files on Thompson's campaign strategy on the subject that could roil his 2008 bid."
"January 1994....Thompson said he was 'certainly pro-life.' But...'I'm not willing to support laws that prohibit early term abortions ... It comes down to whether life begins at conception. I don't know in my own mind if that is the case so I don't feel the law ought to impose that standard on other people.'
"The file also includes...answers provided in 1994 to another newspaper. 'The ultimate decision on abortion should be left with the woman and not the government.'"
The whole article can be found here: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19263100/site/newsweek/page/0/)
So, he is far from the ideal candidate to satisfy the right-wing fringe who control the Republican party. Ties to Hollywood, dissembling on abortion, etc. They don't like that. They made that very clear back in 2000 when they rejected the once-pseudo-moderate John McCain. So it was, so it will be.
Get ready to head to Washington with your daughter in Jan, 2009 Ric. Gotta let her see Hillary sworn in as President of the United States.
Cut and paste has returned, in all its glory.
If Thompson is such a moderate, why do you guys hate him so much?
Todd - There is more to Thompson than that, but you will just have to continue to ignore it, since it obviously makes you feel better.
Frankly, after what you just copied from someone else's work, what is there to not like about him? Is that article supposed to scare me?
It will be interesting to see what that "more" is. But it's no use asking Mr. "I won't say what I think because I'm afraid of counter-arguments" JD.
You have made no case for or against Thompson. Again, you called him a skirt chaser, noted he was divorced, and not much of a church goer, throwing in reference to him having been a lobbyist and an actor. Why leave out a long legal career, and having served on the Committee with Hillary during Watergate? I guess it is easier for you, like with all your positions, to aruge with the strawman.
I have no desire to make a case for Thompson. But you certainly have not made a case against him. You have called names, but made a case, nope.
The case against Thompson? The reasons why he doesn't deserve to be President are the same as the reasons why he won't be elected president. Fred would continue the disastrous Iraq war, launch an idiotic attack on Iran, and waste hundreds of billions of dollars on missile defense. As a result, a Thompson presidency would probably be even less respected around the world and in the United States than Bush's presidency.
And that's just where he's wrong on foreign policy. Likewise, Thompson is as lazy as an ambitious politician can get, just as lacking in intellectual curiosity as George Bush and totally uncaring about whether government works or not.
Like other liberals, I consider Giuliani to be the most dangerous of the major Republican candidates. To the contrary, Thompson would just be an embarrassment. But why would we want to elect another embarrassment?
I presume you have support for your assertions. Right, I did not think so. I suspect that Thompson concerns you more, since you have spent an inordinate amount of time belittling him the last few days.
Still nothing but name-calling here, not that I should have expected anything better.
HE HAS SKIN ON HIS HEAD!
"Still nothing but name-calling here, not that I should have expected anything better."
jd--
That's all you're ever going to get from Caric. Name-calling and lots of hyperbole. That's why he's teaching at Morehead State and not Harvard.
Oh, I'm so hurt. It probably took JD weeks to work up the courage for the Harvard/Morehead State jibe. Unfortunately, we all can't be as academically accomplished as Jeff Goldstein.
By the way, much of the point of that post was to praise Thompson for putting some fire into the primaries. I'm the last person from having a problem with Thompson over church attendance. I can tell you that his failure to attend church is going to hurt him as he runs for president. It would especially hurt him in a general election because it would kill evangelical enthusiasm for him.
That was not me, Prof. Look at the IP addresses, and then apologize.
Listening to you analyze right wing Christian voting enthusiasm is comparable to Tony Dungy listening to my next door neighbor's Shit-Tzu for football advise.
I am waiting, Professor.
And, while you're looking up IP addresses, could you let me know where JD works. I'll need a job in a year or so and JD works at a fine establishment. I sure could use the contacts.
Oh, well, carry on with your demands, JD.
timmah - Professor Caric accused me of writing something that I did not write. He has direct access to the information that clearly shows that I did not write that, and despite that, he accused me of doing it.
Timmah - I have plenty of contacts that I would be happy to help you get in touch with, but somehow, I do not see you wanting to practice on the defense side of the bar.
Jd, let's be serious for a moment. First, yes, he conflated with someone else. I don't think you need to demand an apology. I think well-regarded belittling disdain is where I'd go with that.
I don't like either side of the PI game. I have worked for two of these gents and met others and, while I believe there are situations where an insurance company is directly interested in screwing an injured person (soft tissue wise), litigation seems like a way to get screwed. At least two insurance companies refuse to settle and protract litigation for obscene time limits (I saw one case that was in its sixth year and State Farm was requesting a continuance again!). With that said, most of the people in this office should be suing anyone. We handled the claim recently of a deliveryman for a company who was scratched on the leg by pallets placed by his company's competitor. We demanded and won 45,000 for that scratch. Just blindingly stupid. Most of the folks we represent are poor, unemployed, with no insurance who think neck pain for two weeks is going to make them a million dollars. When it takes three years to pocket $3000, they are hacked, since they could have settled for 2500 from the insurance company three weeks after the accident.
On the other hand, aggressively denying people, finding loopholes to escape liability, making up "pre-existing conditions", etc are not my idea of ethical or worthy practices either. The big picture of defending the third most profitable industry on the planet against the "little guy" neither gibes with my politics not my sense of fairness. Doesn't mean the insurance companies shouldn't defend themselves, but it should mean they place service to their customers above obscene profits (and for that I went outside PI work and into the Katrina denials State Farm was sweet enough to levy on homeowners who had been paying premiums for decades).
In essence, I wouldn't be looking for a career, I'd be looking for a job. And, if it involved litigation, well, gee, that wouldn't look so terrible on my resume.
Right now, I have classes in Election law and Civil Rights and those would be cool areas to work.
Just my two cents.
$45,000 for a scratch is exactly why so many other cases do not settle.
I do not contest that some companies act in an unethical manner, at times. That tends to be the exception, and not the rule. Insurance is one of the most highly regulated industries, and despite the eerie ads on TV, they do not just run around making up excuses to screw people. Obviously, as there are people involved, there are exceptions.
The Katrina stuff is difficult, and that is not limited to just Katrina. Often times, there is flood damage and wind damage. If the homeowner chooses not to carry one or both of these coverages, and the home is destroyed, it is incredibly difficult to determine if the damages were caused by wind or flood, and which damages occurred first.
If you want litigation, the quickest chance to get that is defense counsel. They generally try far more cases than plaintiff counsel, and given the rates, younger attorneys get their feet wet quicker.
You are right, demanding an apology is inappropriate, and generally just ends in an insincere apology. I would expect that Prof. Caric would just be honest enough to admit he made a completely avoidable mistake, but alas, no.
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