Message to GOP:

"If Fred runs, I stay"

Well, amidst this ongoing onslaught of dismal news and prepostorous demonizations from our current POTUS, I was delighted to have gotten home from my indentured servitude just barely in time to tune in to Sean Hannity last evening on "Hannity and Clueless". If you didn't see his exclusive live interview with Fred Thompson, it was nothing short of extraordinary! The printed transcript of their conversation can be found here, if you don't have high speed access to smoothly and quickly download the video. I like re-reading the words anyway, as they seem to illustrate his views better than simply listening.

Unlike the pandering and double speak that we have become so accustomed to, the exchange was blunt and direct (my personal favorite). OK, I know, he's a politician and it sure looks to me like he is going to run, but, by Cracky, you watch this interview and walk away telling yourself it is all a bunch of lies. Maybe, but I think not.

I had two "bones" to pick with him about his past legislative performance...

The first was him NOT voting to impeach Prez. Bubba, who I hold responsible for a multitude of actions (and mostly inactions) that share a very large part of the astonishing mess and back slipping we have experienced in the last 15 years or so. I am still irritated at what Fred did not do then... Bill Clinton deceived us blatantly, certainly obstructed justice and lied publicly on our public airwaves... and later finally admitted it. He passed on squleching Bin Laden several times. He bombed an aspirin factory when the heat was on him hard (pun ruthlessly intentional) for his sex play in our Oval Office.

And there's plenty more of course, which we have discussed and beaten until everybody on both sides of the aisle have turned bright purple. Do we really need to re-hash it here now? I don't think so. Everybody's mind is made up on their personal positon and nothing here is going to change that. But it remained one of the key irritants that I still had over his otherwise quite stunning Conservative record.

He explained it in the interview as follows:

HANNITY: Let me ask you the one issue — you split your decision on Clinton impeachment. You voted to convict on the obstruction, but not the perjury. You still stand by that? Was that the right decision?


THOMPSON: Absolutely. It didn't have anything to do with how I felt about him. It had to do with what I considered my role to be. I considered my role to be a judge, and I had to be dispassionate toward the individual. I went back to the founding fathers and what they thought constituted impeachable offenses and was quite surprised, in some respects, that some misbehavior did not constitute impeachable offenses in their views. So I followed that, and that caused me to split my vote.

Well, OK... I still do not accept that as a valid reason to have voted to keep Willy, but I can concede that if he did feel that way, he voted his conscience. I can respect a decision like that, even when I don't agree with it. And notice he didn't take forty three pages of explanation to declare and describe his reasoning. I also like that he stated that it didn't have anything to do with how he "felt" about him. Does that not exemplify a careful separation of personal opinion from his interpetation of the rule of law? It looks to me like he did it better than I would have!

I can live with that.

My other large and bothersome hiccup with Fred was McCain/Feingold and his endorsement of it. He separated it into two distinct portions when he answered with his reasoning for his action:

HANNITY: ...All right, the other issue: you were one of 11 Republicans who supported McCain-Feingold. A lot of conservatives are angry at that. [Ann Coulter sure is!] Do you still support it? Was it the right decision, in retrospect?


THOMPSON: Part of it was, and part of it wasn't. [This beginning instantly worried me as I thought I sensed the BS Alert Light brightly illuminating!] The part that I came to town to change was the increasing amounts of money being given to politicians. The Clintons showed us how to use soft money in ways that people up until recently thought was against the law. And more and more large donations flowed into the parties and to the candidates.


I said, "Let's raise the hard money legitimate limits that we've always had from $1,000" — it was my amendment, really, that got it from $1,000 to $2,000, plus indexed for inflation, do away with the soft money. I still think that's a good idea. I support that. Coming to a politician and giving him a bunch of money and having business before him is not a good idea.


HANNITY: But 60 days before a general, 30 days before a primary...


THOMPSON: That's not working.


HANNITY: That's not working?


THOMPSON: It shouldn't work.


HANNITY: You would repeal that?


THOMPSON: Yes.

Jeesh, I may be topped of with excrement, but I can reconcile with that, too. When we look at the exorbitant amounts of money that are forecast "necessary" for an individual to be even deemed politically competitive, some limitations in some form don't seem over the top to me. What I don't like is the squelching of American voices such as that from firearms rights organizations (such as the NRA) in that 30 preceding a primary or 60 days prior to a general election. Again, I can just about live with this view.

The other item Sean brought up was his checked answer, perhaps not even directly by him, of a "box" that stated:

"Abortion should be legal in all circumstances for the first three months."

He says he doesn't remember doing that and that it could have been a staff member completing the form for him.

*SOUNDS OF SCREECHING BRAKES!!!*

THAT sounds like Clinton-speak!

But, as Sean goes on to point out...

"That wasn't your voting record, interestingly."

Hmmm... can YOU remember with clarity a given particular act that you performed 13 years ago? Can YOU remember them all from that year??

I cannot.

And which speaks louder? A checked box or his voting record?

I thought his motivation to run for Prez was also very well articulated, too...

HANNITY: ...And, you know, I guess it's the basic question: Why do you, Fred Thompson, want to consider being the next president of the United States?


THOMPSON: Well, I look at things like the threat that our country faces. Everybody is focused on Iraq now. We ought to be thinking about the day after Iraq. We have a threat out there like we've never faced before. And I don't think the American people are being apprised of it; I don't think they realize that this has been something that's been going on for a few hundred years, and our enemies have another 100-year plan. [emphasis mine... who else has recognized the '100 year plan' of the Jihadi scum??] We have a plan basically to get us through the next election.


And we've got a military that's still in the works, as far as transformation is concerned, to deal with that kind of a threat. We're spending much less than we need to, to face that threat. I look at things like globalization, the new millions of employees that are coming online in places like India and China that are going to be competing with our people. And some people want to raise the specter of protectionism. We have a tax code that's hopelessly out of date and out of step for our times now, punishes the things that we say that we want more of and makes us less competitive in the world.


We're an aging society, a good thing. We're living longer. Best medical care in the world. But it's going to bankrupt us, our entitlement programs, unless we do things differently. We're going to lose Social Security and Medicare as we know it.


So you can't sit back, and see people, you know, talking their sound bites and going over their list of things to get applause lines and so forth, and see where your country is headed, and knowing what you've got to do for the next generation in order to make it the same way that it was when we inherited from the prior generation, without thinking serious thoughts about what you ought to do about it.

How about his view of a pre-emptive military strike on Iran to stop them if nuclear ambitions are about to be realized??

HANNITY: If it's clear that they're getting close to getting the weapon, would it be your policy to support preemption as a means of taking out or wiping out those facilities, considering they've, you know, repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the map?


THOMPSON: Yes. Yes.


HANNITY: It would be?


THOMPSON: Yes.

WOW. Is THAT clear enough for you?

*HEARTY APPLAUSE FROM PERHAPS THE LAST CONSERVATIVE IN MAINE!!!*

I'm on board. I think the guy is real. I'm glad I got too busy with my work yesterday to call the GOP and officially depart. I will instead call them today and inquire of the procedure to officially depart (and join no other party) along with the stark footnote that, if Fred runs, I stay. I'm hoping I won't be the first Republican calling in with a similar statement... and I certainly don't wish to be the only one, either. Watching the movements and words from other real Conservatives, I expect company.

Here is Mr. Thompson's fresh Presidential bid website...

Of course, you well may not agree with me... that's what 'Comments' are for... and I welcome them without a closed mind to your view.