Fred Thompson – Same Bush Message, Just Far More Eloquent

The following is excerpted from Fred Thompson’s profile at Right Web:

Although not tightly aligned with the neoconservative political faction, Thompson has long pursued hawkish U.S. security policies in line with the views expressed by his colleagues at AEI (American Enterprise Institute). He has been an outspoken defender of the Iraq War, frequently voiced skepticism of the United Nations, championed controversial missile defense policies, and been a reliable antagonist of Mideast regimes targeted by neocons as part of the “war on terror.”

… the Bill Kristol-run Weekly Standard promoted Thompson as a replacement for John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Discussing his voting record, the International Relations Center’s Tom Barry wrote: “He stands solidly against gays, abortion, and gun control. He has voted against prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation, against adding sexual orientation to the definition of hate crimes, and against same-sex marriage. The former senator and current media pundit is a hardliner on street crime, supporting the death penalty, advocating longer sentences, and backing an escalated drug war. But his tough-on-crime reputation does not extend to white-collar crime, having opposed class action lawsuits and supported limitations on product liability damages”

ABC later gave Thompson his own slot, titled “The Fred Thompson Report.” Thompson has used his posts at ABC and the American Enterprise Institute to harangue Democrats for their anti-war positions, defend convicted former Bush administration official and key neoconservative insider I. Lewis Libby, criticize Senate investigations into alleged Justice Department wrongdoings, and press conservative views on social and environmental issues.

In a March 2007 radio broadcast entitled “Plutonic Warming,” which was posted on the National Review and AEI websites, Thompson ridiculed the notion of global warming, ….

A. Alexander provided the following insight into Fred Thompson:

The importance of being Fred Thompson, so the GOP hopes, is that he can be Bush without being Bush. And, the Republican prayer goes – a not-Bush-Bush should be able to revive the long-lost-Bush “post-9/11 world” magic and win the election come November, 2008.

Thompson has acknowledged the importance of being Fred Thompson and expressed his wholehearted willingness to be the not-Bush-Bush candidate by inviting and accepting the Bush clan’s help on his campaign and fundraising, by hiring all the old Bush and Cheney aides to run his campaign, by wooing all the old Bush-Cheney backers, and by carrying on Bush’s talking points without allowing so much as a smidge of daylight between his stance and the presidents.

Yes, indeed, the plan for Fred is that he is supposed to be everything Bush could have been, if only he hadn’t been Bush…all the same failed positions and ideas, but communicated with a Hollywood actor’s skill. And that, so the GOP hopes, will be the winning combination in 2008.

Congresspedia at SourceWatch.org provided the following:

Over the course of his lobbying career, Thompson earned about $507,000 representing clients such as Canadian-owned cable companies and deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to government documents and media accounts from his first run for the Senate in 1994.[5] Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, defended the work, stating “There’s nothing wrong with lobbying. It’s an honorable profession.”[6] John Heilemann of New York Magazine was more critical, stating “Critics point out that Thompson’s aw-shucks, shit-kicker populism is more than a little bit phony…he spent eighteen years as a registered Washington lobbyist, doing the bidding of such high-powered clients as General Electric and Westinghouse, pushing for the passage of the deregulatory legislation that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the eighties.”

On March 11, 2007, Thompson appeared on Fox News Sunday to discuss the possibility of a 2008 candidacy for president. The announcement spurred several grassroots draft movements, including a well-organized draft campaign started by a former Thompson political aide in Knoxville, Tennessee.

During the interview, Thompson articulated several of his current political views. He reiterated his opposition to abortion rights, gun control, and gay marriage; and support for the Iraq War (with no withdrawal timeline), President Bush’s tax cuts, and a presidential pardon for Scooter Libby.

Thompson has also been skeptical of the role humans have played in global warming.

On May 30, 2007, The Politico reported that Thompson planned to enter the presidential race over the Independence Day weekend.

Congresspedia also reported extensively on his campaign team that includes links to their references:

At the outset of his campaign, Thompson’s spokesperson was Mark Corallo, who formerly handled press operations for White House aide Karl Rove during the Lewis “Scooter” Libby trial. The man who organized a Thompson conference call the week his intentions were made public, Ken Rietz, at the time worked as an executive at the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (run by Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn). Rietz had once spied on former Maine Sen. Ed Muskie’s (D) presidential campaign on behalf of Richard Nixon in 1972 as part of “Operation Sedan Chair.”

Other advisers to the campaign include former FEC chairman Michael E. Toner (general counsel), former Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo, and Tom Collamore, a former executive at Altria, the corporate parent of Philip Morris USA. Collamore was tapped to lead the campaign, according to several sources.

According to Liz Sardoti of the Ashland City Times, Thompson surrounded himself with advisers who served under former U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the weeks surrounding his announcement that he was planning for a run.[16] Among those also expected to play a role, she wrote, were Mary Matalin, a former adviser in the current Bush administration, and Tim Griffin, an ex-aide at the Republican National Committee who as a U.S. attorney in Arkansas was involved in the Bush administration U.S. attorney firings controversy.

George P. Bush, a nephew of President Bush, has contributed to Thompson’s “prospective presidential campaign … and signed an e-mail asking friends and associates to do the same, The Politico has learned,” Mike Allen reported June 4, 2007. Sources say Matalin will be an unpaid adviser and Lawrence B. Lindsey, President Bush’s “first economic policy adviser and an architect of his tax cuts”, “economic adviser to Bush’s first presidential campaign”, and a former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, will head economic policy and “also have a hand in the campaign’s broader policy formulation.” David M. McIntosh, “a lawyer and former congressman from Indiana who was an official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations,” will head domestic policy. And Michael Turk, “e-campaign director for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, will take a leave of absence from his current job with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association to assist in getting the Thompson website off the ground. He may continue in a webmaster capacity for the campaign.”