Author Topic: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?  (Read 15364 times)

JohnJacobH

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Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« on: September 07, 2007, 09:33:11 PM »
Say it ain't so.

For those of us who spent valuable years of their lives lobbying with other scorched grassroots activists this is REAL BAD news.



http://www.conservativesbetrayed.com/gw3/articles-latestnews/articles.php?CMSArticleID=1827&CMSCategoryID=19

Conservatives, Beware of Fred Thompson
 
He disappointed conservatives during his eight years in the Senate. Is there any reason to think this Washington insider and veteran trial lawyer would be any better as President?
 
By Richard A. Viguerie
ConservativesBetrayed.com

The frustration of conservatives is understandable. Faced with the prospects of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney as the next Republican presidential candidate, many are pinning their hopes on former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Could this actor-politician be the new Ronald Reagan?
 
Mainstream media types assure us that he is. His record suggests otherwise.
 
This is the second time conservatives have pinned their hopes on Thompson. When he was first elected in the Republican sweep of 1994, he was seen then as the “new Reagan”—a charismatic movie star turned politician. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole quickly picked Thompson to give the five-minute GOP rebuttal to President Clinton’s economic address, and no less than The New York Times swooned with its headline the next morning, “A Star Is Born.”
 
He turned out to be a shooting star—a dazzling flash in the sky, soon gone, not there dependably, night after night, like the Big Dipper. Or, as The Tennessean later put it, “A year ago [Thompson] looked like a rising star. Today he looks more like a fading comet.”
 
Especially to conservatives who have taken the time to examine his record.
 
Rumors circulated that Thompson was lazy, uninterested in the daily grind that comes with being a Senator—and one can understand that Capitol Hill is a lot more tedious and less glamorous than a Hollywood movie lot. More important were Thompson’s failures of will and his lack of leadership on any legislation that would promote the conservative cause. Instead what little leadership we got from Thompson advanced the liberal Establishment agenda.
 
Failure of will: Charged with investigating the Clinton White House’s Asia fundraising scandal (“Asiagate”), Thompson managed to draw a tiny blood sample from Bill Clinton but little more. If he’s that ineffectual against an easy target like Bill Clinton at the height of his parade of scandals, why should we expect Thompson to be any more effective against, say, the other partner in the Clintons’ 20-year plan to rule the nation?
 
On the wrong side of the fence: The McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, championed by Fred Thompson, is the only important piece of legislation where he played a major role. And that is not an accomplishment to be proud of as a conservative. In fact, now that he’s running for President, Thompson is trying to flip-flop on this issue. Well, he can run, but he can’t hide from his record.
 
Why McCain-Feingold is so important—and so bad
 
Never mind that it was patently unconstitutional, as the courts are starting to declare. McCain-Feingold was also, from the beginning, a sham and a lie.
 
Its stated purpose—its claim to being a “reform”—was that it would take big money out of politics. Well, you can see how successful it’s been! The big corporate and union lobbies are more powerful than ever, and bored billionaires with nothing else to do are eyeing the Senate and the White House as the next trophies on their mantelpieces.
 
No, the real purpose of “reform” legislation like McCain-Feingold is to serve as incumbent-protection laws. Establishment politicians aren’t threatened by the K Street lobbyists: they feed off them. They are threatened by grassroots organizations that keep an eye on how they vote and pass that information on to their members.
 
From the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club, from Right to Left, these groups call incumbents on the carpet. So the incumbents pass laws to restrict the activities of these groups.
 
McCain-Feingold, the most prominent recent addition to campaign regulations, does this by prohibiting these groups from broadcasting any issue ads that refer to specific candidates for federal office in the 30 days before a primary, or 60 days before a general election.
 
Why were those dates chosen? Because “that’s when people are most interested in the elections,” according to Congressman Martin Meehan (D-MA), one of the law’s most ardent supporters. In other words, McCain-Feingold and similar laws are intended to silence the voices of ordinary citizens who contribute to these organizations. And they are designed to do so at exactly the times when grassroots citizens can have the greatest impact.
 
The real purpose of McCain-Feingold-type laws is to silence your voice in the campaign process, by placing a gag on the organizations that represent you and your views. Such measures are the gravest threat to your free speech that exist today.
 
And who was the only other Republican Senator to join John McCain in pushing hard for this assault on your First Amendment free speech rights? Fred Thompson. Indeed, campaign finance “reform” was the only issue on which he seemed to show any passion.
 
Thompson was deeply involved in writing the law, lobbied for it among his fellow Republicans, and was even inclined to call it “McCain-Feingold-Thompson.” He and McCain were able to convince only five of their fellow Republicans in the Senate—but added to the Democrats, that was enough. “You were essential to our success,” Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) told Thompson in a gushing thank-you note after passage of McCain-Feingold.
 
 
Marshmallow Republicanism
 
When we look at the two politicians who are closest to Thompson—Howard Baker and Lamar Alexander—we can see very clearly why Fred will never be a conservative leader, much less a conservative hero.
 
Fred Thompson and Howard Baker are as intertwined as the two sides of a coin. Fred Thompson was Howard Baker’s campaign manager in his successful reelection campaign in 1972, after which the two were good ole’ Tennessee buddies. Senator Baker invited Thompson to move up north and be minority (Republican) counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of Richard Nixon.
 
Thompson, it is said, was the person who got Senator Baker to ask a Nixon aide: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” The reply led to the discovery of the Nixon tapes, and that led to Nixon’s resignation. Almost sounds like something scripted in Hollywood or on the set of “Law and Order.”
 
Thompson and Baker are still good ole’ buddies today, with Baker urging Thompson to make this run for the presidency and playing a key role in its unfolding. Officially or unofficially, we could expect Howard Baker to play a key role in a Thompson White House.
 
And who, you ask, is Howard Baker? You belie your age, of course, by asking that, but even old folks may be excused for a little fuzziness on this matter. Well, Howard Baker was one of the chain of leaders of the liberal (Big Government) wing of the Republican Party. The order of succession was Nelson Rockefeller-Howard Baker-George H. W. Bush-George W. Bush. Because he never got to the White House as its #1 or #2 occupant, Howard Baker has sort of faded into history, but he was important in his heyday—and on the opposite side of the ideological fence from conservatives.
 
As Republican leader of the Senate, Howard Baker worked with President Carter to turn the Panama Canal over to the drug-running Panamanian dictatorship. He voted to spend taxpayers’ money for abortions. As a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, he said Reagan’s proposed tax cuts were “a riverboat gamble.” You get the picture. And this guy is still Fred Thompson’s closest advisor.
 
As for Senator Lamar Alexander (who’s up for reelection in 2008), he’s cut from the same cloth as Baker and Thompson—talk conservative but act like a “moderate” (i.e., liberal); above all, avoid sharp ideological confrontation with the Democrats. “The conservatism he exemplifies…,” wrote Jonathan Rauch in Reason magazine, “is no longer a program. It is a style of talking.”
 
Like Thompson, Lamar Alexander got his first job in Washington from Howard Baker; and when Thompson dropped out of the Senate in 2002 to return to lobbying, trial lawyering, and show biz, Alexander replaced him.
 
 
 
     

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Dakotaranger

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2007, 11:42:27 PM »
He's admitted several times since that it was a mistake to do so....McCain however never has.
"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, 1796

Pathfinder

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2007, 03:58:05 AM »
I just read this piece, have not investigated the source. It reads, however, like a pre-programmed hit piece, hitting the web and intended to slap mud and whatever on Thompson. As my fellow NoDaker stated, Fred has publicly expressed his dismay at how badly McCain (the new Manchurian Candidate) - Feingold (who?) turned out.

As noted elsewhere on this site (http://www.downrange.tv/forfred.htm), his voting record where it counts (2A) is right on the Conservative money.

2008 needs to be a one-issue election - the Second Amendment. It is the only way we can send a message to the President and Congress that we will no longer be silent or passive or tolerant of their abuses.
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do this to others and I require the same from them"

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gunman42782

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2007, 05:42:08 AM »
Well put, Pathfinder, I agree completely.
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CLP

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2007, 07:04:21 AM »
Pathfinder, you said it all.  Just need to think about his running mate, maybe Tom Selleck?

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #5 on: Today at 06:37:39 AM »

xd40lover

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2007, 08:18:07 AM »
fred seems to be the best choice for gun owners!!!!   tom for vice pres. great idea..  gooooo  fred@tom  what a team.   xd40 :o

JohnJacobH

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2007, 08:18:56 AM »

2008 needs to be a one-issue election - the Second Amendment. It is the only way we can send a message to the President and Congress that we will no longer be silent or passive or tolerant of their abuses.

Been there, done that, got the Tee Shirt, Coffee Mug and Bumpersticker.

There is exactly ONE acceptable 2nd Amendment  position:


Repeal, repeal, repeal.

Repeal 1994 gun control, repeal 1986 gun control, repeal 1968 gun control, repeal 1932 gun control.

Try to remember 1986 gun control was passed under highwater mark Republican President RR.

And definitely remember the 100,000+ other laws on the books render your 2nd Amendment rights meaningless.

If you are sitting in jail on a 48 hour detention because of an (alledged) seat belt violation (yes, that was a Supreme Court
ruling) while the authorities run high and low  searching all your papers and possessions for other violations of the 100,000+
laws of which we are ALL guilty (including Senator Thompson) it is meaningless to say you are prepared to overthrow tyranny
with the aid of the 2nd Amendment..

I have had a lifetime of this nonsense.  I do not need any more "learning curve" Presidencies. FDR hit the ground running to impose  Socialism and the next President needs to hit the ground running to repeal Socialism.

If you are worried about the quality of the information vis a vis the source (attacking the source is known as ad hominim argument and is not valid) because it might be a hit piece get over it.  There will be a zillion hit pieces every day in every way.  Is the information true? That is all that counts.

Best regards to all,



DonWorsham

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2007, 08:25:12 AM »


If you are worried about the quality of the information vis a vis the source (attacking the source is known as ad hominim argument and is not valid) because it might be a hit piece get over it.  There will be a zillion hit pieces every day in every way.  Is the information true? That is all that counts.



Does this mean Fred is no longer your man for President?
Don Worsham
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Rastus

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #8 on: September 08, 2007, 09:39:54 AM »
McCain-Feingold is not our friend.  There is no way the supporters (if they were paying attention) could have not seen the effects...that's why it was written, to silence the public opposition....you and me.  It was designed to slip through and strangle the people who you and I would have sent as proxy to make our voice heard.   

If you "know" what you are talking about then have to ask the question how did McCain-Feingold keep our voices down, realize that you may be letting other people do your thinking for you in several areas.  Question everything, including this post. 

I am not jumping on any presidential bandwagon right now just because virtually all of the candidates are 2nd Ammendment unacceptable or are likely unelectable....the election far away, a lot can happen and other more suitable candidates may appear. 
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
-William Pitt, British Prime-Minister (1759-1806)
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JohnJacobH

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Re: Fred Thompson SUPPORTED McCain/Feingold?
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2007, 09:03:31 PM »
Does this mean Fred is no longer your man for President?

Not sure how things work in your universe but in my universe when a fella climbs out of some dark, bureaucratic back alley and
cold cocks you with a sucker punch you tend to give a him a wide berth ever thereafter.

At the HEIGHT of the Republican Revolution one of only TWO Republicans to come up with this Cockamamie (B)olshevik (S)tupidity?

Do you know what happens when you or your friends peaceably assemble to petition the Goobermint for redress of grievances?

I will tell you: you need a treasurer.

Do you know who the treasurer happens to be?

I will tell you: he/she is the man/woman who can actually GO TO JAIL if all the "I" s are not dotted and all the "T" s are not
crossed.

Do you know what McCain-Feingold does?  It makes the treasurers job 100 percent more complicated.

Say your annual budget is a whopping $8,000 dollars a year.

Don't  spend that money the wrong way- postcard mailings, internet ISP fees etc that might be construed as political campaign speech, you might just be a criminal.

So for a man who yacks about Federalism and Sovereignty and is a lawyer to boot, he sure has a funny way of looking at
the 1st Amendment.

Just saying.........

Best regards,



 

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