“I don’t have to prove myself to anybody. I’ve done pretty well being me. And me is all they’re going to get.”
– Fred Thompson, as quoted by Slate.com.
http://www.slate.com/id/2176518
Sunday on Meet the Press, Fred Thompson, wearing every one of his 65 years on his sagging face, amiably talked himself out of the Republican nomination for president in 2008. On social issues, he nearly sounded sane, coming out against any amendments to the Constitution or federal statutes making abortion and gay marriage illegal, preferring to leave those decisions to the states. And he also considered the fervid pandering of the GOP leadership attempting to intercede in the Terri Schiavo tragedy excessive, believing that such life-and-death decisions should be left to the family and the doctors in charge. At one point, remarkable for a Republican of the Bush era, he even granted his fellow citizens the right to disagree with him without reprisal. If you’re keeping score, Fred essentially told the Christopublican ‘values voters’ to sit on it and twist. Why, he’s almost as liberal as Giuliani on the social issues that have propelled the born-again base to the polls like lemmings since Ronald Reagan did his star turn in the Oval Office.
Moving on to the current GOP fear-churner of Iran, Ol’ Fred adopted the paranoid party line that we have to attack Iran to insure they never develop nuclear weapons, but allowed as how the blowback of that decision could ultimately be just as bad as letting them have nukes. While he invoked the usual cast of crazed Iranian bogeymen that the White House has been peddling of late to distract us from Bush’s disaster in Iraq, his relaxed attitude conveyed a decided lack of enthusiasm for the topic; perhaps he realizes that the Iranian leaders have never shown any particular inclination towards national suicide of the sort that would be visited upon them should they nuke Israel — in fact, Iran could have already been raining missiles on Israel, if they wanted to be annihilated in some glorious demented sacrifice to Allah — and therefore any threat they posed as a nuclear power would be amply constrained by the Cold War theory of Mutual Assured Destruction that kept the old USSR and China in line since the ’40s. He even agreed with experts not in the employ of the Bush Administration that Iran is years away from creating a nuclear device, if they indeed do intend to assemble one. (We have only the less-than-convincing assurances of the ‘White House Iran Group’ on that last point.)
While he trotted out Iran’s ‘America is the Great Satan’ rhetoric, which didn’t impede the Reaganistas from doing business with them in the Iran/Contra affair, he also confessed that he would need much better intelligence than that used to promulgate the invasion of Iraq before he would commit to an attack on Iran. And, sounding like a Democrat, he stressed a preference for smart diplomacy over smart bombs.
Sorry, Fred, that kind of reasonable approach to domestic issues and international affairs ain’t gonna get you the GOP nomination in 2008. The Weekly Standard staff, who threw themselves into a chickenhawk feather-flying flurry pitching Thompson’s candidacy, must be wearing black armbands today, and it’s only a matter of time until Mitt and Rudy air video clips and quotes from Fred’s confab with Tim Russert to drop ‘TV’s Arthur Branch’ a few more notches in the polls.
The Tattlesnake can only conclude one of two reasons for Fred’s unusual Republican rationality: Either this is what he really believes, or he’s tired of the campaign trail and wants to go home to Hollywood and make some decent money again.
Either way, I’ll bet Fred doesn’t end up in the top three in Iowa or New Hampshire.
The Tattlesnake — Fred Thompson Eases His Way Out Edition
“I don’t have to prove myself to anybody. I’ve done pretty well being me. And me is all they’re going to get.”
– Fred Thompson, as quoted by Slate.com.
http://www.slate.com/id/2176518
Sunday on Meet the Press, Fred Thompson, wearing every one of his 65 years on his sagging face, amiably talked himself out of the Republican nomination for president in 2008. On social issues, he nearly sounded sane, coming out against any amendments to the Constitution or federal statutes making abortion and gay marriage illegal, preferring to leave those decisions to the states. And he also considered the fervid pandering of the GOP leadership attempting to intercede in the Terri Schiavo tragedy excessive, believing that such life-and-death decisions should be left to the family and the doctors in charge. At one point, remarkable for a Republican of the Bush era, he even granted his fellow citizens the right to disagree with him without reprisal. If you’re keeping score, Fred essentially told the Christopublican ‘values voters’ to sit on it and twist. Why, he’s almost as liberal as Giuliani on the social issues that have propelled the born-again base to the polls like lemmings since Ronald Reagan did his star turn in the Oval Office.
Moving on to the current GOP fear-churner of Iran, Ol’ Fred adopted the paranoid party line that we have to attack Iran to insure they never develop nuclear weapons, but allowed as how the blowback of that decision could ultimately be just as bad as letting them have nukes. While he invoked the usual cast of crazed Iranian bogeymen that the White House has been peddling of late to distract us from Bush’s disaster in Iraq, his relaxed attitude conveyed a decided lack of enthusiasm for the topic; perhaps he realizes that the Iranian leaders have never shown any particular inclination towards national suicide of the sort that would be visited upon them should they nuke Israel — in fact, Iran could have already been raining missiles on Israel, if they wanted to be annihilated in some glorious demented sacrifice to Allah — and therefore any threat they posed as a nuclear power would be amply constrained by the Cold War theory of Mutual Assured Destruction that kept the old USSR and China in line since the ’40s. He even agreed with experts not in the employ of the Bush Administration that Iran is years away from creating a nuclear device, if they indeed do intend to assemble one. (We have only the less-than-convincing assurances of the ‘White House Iran Group’ on that last point.)
While he trotted out Iran’s ‘America is the Great Satan’ rhetoric, which didn’t impede the Reaganistas from doing business with them in the Iran/Contra affair, he also confessed that he would need much better intelligence than that used to promulgate the invasion of Iraq before he would commit to an attack on Iran. And, sounding like a Democrat, he stressed a preference for smart diplomacy over smart bombs.
Sorry, Fred, that kind of reasonable approach to domestic issues and international affairs ain’t gonna get you the GOP nomination in 2008. The Weekly Standard staff, who threw themselves into a chickenhawk feather-flying flurry pitching Thompson’s candidacy, must be wearing black armbands today, and it’s only a matter of time until Mitt and Rudy air video clips and quotes from Fred’s confab with Tim Russert to drop ‘TV’s Arthur Branch’ a few more notches in the polls.
The Tattlesnake can only conclude one of two reasons for Fred’s unusual Republican rationality: Either this is what he really believes, or he’s tired of the campaign trail and wants to go home to Hollywood and make some decent money again.
Either way, I’ll bet Fred doesn’t end up in the top three in Iowa or New Hampshire.