Patterico's Pontifications

7/16/2007

More on Those Upcoming Fred Lobbying Stories

Filed under: 2008 Election,General — Patterico @ 6:03 am



At the American Spectator, the Prowler is busy pre-spinning the upcoming lobbying stories on Fred Thompson:

Former Sen. Fred Thompson’s loose relationship with a Washington, D.C. law firm is opening the door to mischief making, and apparently the campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is so broke that it has to recycle old news on obscure websites to try to do damage to other candidates. On a “new” (it went live on Saturday, July 14), “independent” blog entitled “blogoftubes,” the unknown blogger “breaks” news that Thompson “lobbied” for former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The direct link to the blogoftubes post is here. The Prowler says that the Aristide story is “part of an opposition research file that is being distributed by other campaigns” and that it is old news that “has been fully vetted and reported on for years in the Tennessee and national press.” Apparently Thompson has explained that he made one phone call to the Bush I administration at the request of an Arent Fox partner, to urge the continuation of the embargo.

Oh — you’ll never guess who that partner is. I’m just kidding; you easily can. That’s right, it’s “the former Democrat congressman Michael Barnes.”

I’m thinking that phone call will make it into that upcoming L.A. Times hit piece on Thompson’s alleged lobbying for Chile. Speaking of which, The Prowler also has more — well, not much more — on that:

It was reported last week that the Los Angeles Times, fresh from its hit piece attempting to link Thompson to a pro-abortion group client of Arent Fox, is now attempting to link Thompson to another Arent Fox client, the government of Chile.

As with Haiti, Chile was never a client of Thompson’s. Thompson has never denied the phone call on behalf of Aristide, or that he did work on behalf of Arent Fox. “There’s just no story here,” says a Thompson supporter, familiar with the situation.

The Prowler quotes a supposed opposition researcher for a rival candidate, who is open about the cynical way the lobbying stories are being exploited. The opposition researcher — if that’s who he really is — says that “there are only about three stories worth pursuing, and we just repackage them and blast them out.” Heh. Sounds more like someone impersonating an opposition researcher to me, but who knows?

13 Responses to “More on Those Upcoming Fred Lobbying Stories”

  1. “But he also told the Eagle Forum in a 1994 questionnaire, “I do not believe abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”

    Guess who

    AF (4a3fa6)

  2. […] media’s already busy sifting through his Senate papers, although, per Patterico, it looks the cast of characters in the next LA Times hit piece overlaps somewhat with the cast […]

    Hot Air » Blog Archive » Evangelical leaders leaning towards Fred (d4224a)

  3. you’ve never pre-spun anything? pre-spinning during an idle moment will save you time during a later, hectic moment.

    assistant devil's advocate (8c38a3)

  4. AF:

    Guess what? Many of those opposed to abortion feel the same way.

    Besides, What is most important is that Thompson believes in federalism. Thus he belives that Roe V Wade should be overturned regardless of what he believes about abortion personally.

    gahrie (de5a83)

  5. “But he also told the Eagle Forum in a 1994 questionnaire, “I do not believe abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”

    In a candidate survey the same year for The Tennessean newspaper, Thompson said that states should have the right to impose “reasonable restrictions on abortions such as parental notification.” But he said, “The ultimate decision on abortion should be left with the woman and not the government.”

    AF (4a3fa6)

  6. Restricting abortion isn’t the same as outlawing it.

    Scott Jacobs (90eabe)

  7. AF:

    You’re missing the point. Who cares what his personal opinion about abortion is? I wouldn’t care if he supported abortion in all cases personally, as long as he also believed that the issue should be decided by the states, and not the Supreme Court. After all, if the issue is returned to the states, his one vote counts exactly as much as mine does.

    gahrie (de5a83)

  8. You mean “the former Democrat congressman Michael Barnes” who represented my congressional district through 1986 and who ran the subcommittee with jurisdiction over Central America and who was really tight with the Sandinistas? That’s a very good sign.

    Attila (Pillage Idiot) (68fd1f)

  9. gahrie:
    Besides, What is most important is that Thompson believes in federalism. Thus he belives that Roe V Wade should be overturned regardless of what he believes about abortion personally.

    Thompson now takes a federalist position on abortion now in that he opposes both Roe v. Wade and federal attempts to ban abortion, preferring to see the legality of abortion determined at the state level (while favoring various restrictions on abortion even at the federal level).

    However, Thompson once supported Roe v. Wade, at least according to an 1993 interview in the Memphis Commercial Appeal in which he said that he “supports the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.”

    Crust (399898)

  10. Bryan at Hot Air is giving Thompson a hard time on Campaign Finance Reform.

    Crust (399898)

  11. If the MSM keeps it up about how liberal Fred is, he will have half of the Democratic vote too.

    Vatar (5f0f63)

  12. I have sort of tuned all Fred! talk out, because he has had lymphoma. Sure, it’s in remission now but for a short time. I have known people with lymphoma–it comes back–and they have not been able to cope with work well.

    As O’Reilly says, where am I wrong?

    Patricia (824fa1)

  13. I don’t believe Thompson ever told the Commercial Appeal that he supported Roe v Wade. Here’s the original claim:

    Thompson said he supports the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. He opposes federal funding for abortion and favors allowing states to impose limited restrictions on abortion, such as parental notification requirements for minors.

    Note that this is not a quote, it’s the reporter’s characterisation of his position. The reporter may well have been wrong. If he told the reporter that he thought states ought not to ban abortion in the first trimester, I can see how a not-very-well-informed reporter might summarise that as “he supports Roe“.

    Milhouse (ef8775)


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