The Violence Worker!

Where Do We Go From Here?

Campaign Fred is dead. The choices we have left are in many ways almost as bad as having no choice. Thompson wasn’t perfect, but he was at least a more consistent conservative than any of the current front runners.

Some people say he tanked because he started to late, or that his organization wasn’t organized or that he didn’t have the fire in his belly and maybe those people are correct. I think it’s a bit more than that though. I think the lateness didn’t really hurt him and he had a conservative message. He seemed to be campaigning at least as hard or harder than Rudy.

When elections come, people generally want change. Reagan won on his ability to communicate change from the Carter doldrums. When Bush 41 ran, people wanted change. Along came the younger Clinton who seemed to get that message and was able to have two successful terms. Bush 43 was another change and now, at the end of his second term, people are want things changed again. Most people didn’t see Thompson as a portent for change. Thompson was offering old school conservatism and that isn’t change in most folks’ minds. Never mind that conservatism works and leads to prosperity, people wanted change and they just didn’t see it in Fred.

McCain seems to be where some people are heading, but he’s no conservative. He never really has been and he isn’t now. McCain is a media darling and his name is too close to others such as Feingold, Kennedy and  Liebermann. McCain is not Presidential material. He’s a loose cannon and has very little, if any, executive experience. McCain, despite is protestations to the contrary, tried to push amnesty for illegals.  I just don’t know.

Forget the Huckster. I had a commenter ask since Fred had withdrawn, would I consider Huck and my answer is no – not at this time. Fred had the most to say about the Huckster and most of it wasn’t that good. The only thing that Huck has over McCain is the executive experience.

Rudy has the experience and I might even consider supporting him, but unless he does well in Florida, he’ll be hitting the road as well.

That leaves Mitt. Like the last guy from Massachusetts who ran for President, Mitt has a flip-flop problem, but Romney has the executive experience and says he’s come home to conservatism to stay. We’ll see.

For now, I’m leaning Mittward. Unless one of the other front runners can convince me otherwise, I’m going to give tentative support to the Romney campaign.

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Down, But Not Out

Frankly, I’m feeling a bit disheartened. I know I haven’t blogged a lot about Fred Thompson. I really haven’t blogged much about the primaries and I doubt my .2 cents would have made any difference anyway. I am still pulling for Fred and I‘d hoped he would have wowed them in South Carolina. I really hoped that his withering attack on the Huckster would have shown the difference between them. 

Fred wasn’t the most experience candidate out there. Rudy and Mitt have him on that count, but Fred is one of those guys that seem to have a certain gravitas (to borrow a word from the 2000 campaign) and an understanding of the issues and challenges that face us. He didn’t jump through the media hoops like a trained dog and he didn’t pull his punches when it came time to throw a punch or two.

My guess is that Senator Thompson and his advisers are hunkering down and trying to decide if he should stay in the race or bow out. My heart wants him to stay, but I try to be pragmatic. He might try and stay on until Florida, but I don’t know. It seems as if a lot of the steam has dissipated. 

If Fred does decide to leave, who’s next?  Like many of us, we will be stuck wrestling with who we should now throw our support. It won’t be Huckabee unless he is the eventual nominee. I will also want to see who Fred will endorse, I suppose, before making any final decisions. My friend Bruce, the former B-52 Radar-Navigator, told me today after church that he thought Fred might even endorse the Hukster. I disagreed on the basis of Fred’s attacks, but no one probably knows except Fred at this point.

It’s almost as if the naysayers are right. The Reagan Revolution is gone. Everybody, even the Democrats like Obama want to ride on his legacy, but no one seems to want to step up to the plate and endorse his ideas.

I don’t believe we are defeated. Crippled maybe, wounded certainly, but Conservatism is not dead yet and I think we conservatives are still in the fight. We may be down, but we are not out.

VW

Fred Thompson's Christmas Ad

Huckabee's floating cross and Clinton's ad showing her playing a socialist Santa Claus cannot even compare to Fred Thompson's Christmas ad.  In it, Fred's voice or even his picture is in the ad.  Instead, we see images of servicemen and women as "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" is played on solo piano in the back ground.   His ad is a little selfless.

At the end are some words of gratitude and just the name Fred Thompson.  No overt politics.  No pandering.  No website.

I'm more and more for Fred!

Enjoy

Merry Christmas

Thanks to Black Five!

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Now This Rocks!

Check out this video.  MoRon Paul - eat your heart out!

Hat Tip: Right Wing News

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Fred Thompson Isn't In Junior High School

You've seen them before.  They may have started in Junior High with someone asking you in a note passed through the classroom.  They asked really serious questions such as, "what is your favorite color?"  "What is your favorite band?", might be another.

That was fine for seventh grade Geography, but it seems a bit immature to be asking Presidential Candidates such questions and expect any kind of a serious answer.

The AP, on the other hand, thinks it is a great idea. 

From the Independent Thinker:

And, of course, there’s the AP dog-and-pony show, wherein they ask the candidates stupid yearbook questions, instead of dealing with substance.  Thompson’s responses, while certainly not pleasing to the AP (that is, they wouldn’t have been had the AP gotten the joke) were sure-fire crowd-pleasers to those of us who understood where Thompson was coming from:
What’s your favorite joke?  Presidential debates.
What’s your favorite keepsake?  Trophy wife.
 What’s your favorite nickname?  Mr. President.
And, of course, there’s my new favorite poke in the eye:  What do you like to do on a ‘lazy day’?   Campaigning.

Thompson's answers to this inanity are priceless.

Go Fred!

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CNN And The Debates

Well, Yesterday's CNN YouTube Debate is history and it appears that there are no distinct winners.  There were obviously two distinct losers.  I watched most of it, however, I missed the Clinton plant.  Here's my take on who won and who lost.

The losers in no particular order:

First is MoRon Paul.  Of course the small army of slavering, online Paultards will be claiming he won for no other reason then their collective IQ equals that of a rusted tin can.  In actuality, McCain slapped MoRon Paul down pretty hard over the difference between Vietnam and Iraq and I cheered every word.  It was almost enough for me to start supporting McCain!  Anyone not knowing the basic differences shouldn't even be on that stage, let alone running for President.  He's the Republican Kook-cinich candidate

The other loser of course was CNN.  If there was any doubt about CNN's liberal bias, it should be completely removed by now.  As a matter of fact, I hope the Republican candidates refuse to even be interviewed by CNN or participate on that network in any way after this.  Why not?  The Democrats won't go near Fox News.

Conservatives have claimed that CNN should be renamed as the "Clinton News Network" for quite some time now and last night was proof positive.  Now, I don't mind if the candidates are asked hard questions by those who do not support them.  A Presidential candidate should be prepared for the hard questions.  However, it would seem to me that saying from the start that questions from Democrat operatives will be involved.  Ambushing tells me that they have a bias and they are pushing it.

It's blatantly disreputable and disingenuous.

Who won the debate? 

I don't think there was a clear winner although Huckabee seemed in command on his answers.  Thompson did well and stayed above the fray.  McCain also did well, but he has the problem of supporting amnesty and being the McCain behind McCain-Feingold so I could never support him in the primary.  Romney and Giuliani were predictable and didn't make any real mistakes.

There you have it.  My take on last night's debate.

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Fred Thompson On Immigration

Fred Thompson outlined his ideas on immigration and border security today and I like what I see.  I haven't blogged much about Thompson even though I have aligned with a couple of blog groups for Thompson and I have a link to donate to his campaign on the right side (naturally) of the blog.  The reason is that while I support him at the moment, it's tenuous, but I'm liking him more and more.

Here are some of the things he is saying:

No Amnesty. Do not provide legal status to illegal aliens. Amnesty undermines U.S. law and policy, rewards bad behavior, and is unfair to the millions of immigrants who follow the law and are awaiting legal entry into the United States. In some cases, those law-abiding and aspiring immigrants have been waiting for several years.

An amnesty program would do nothing more than encourage even more illegals to come here.

Attrition through Enforcement. Reduce the number of illegal aliens through increased enforcement against unauthorized alien workers and their employers. Without illegal employment opportunities available, fewer illegal aliens will attempt to enter the country, and many of those illegally in the country now likely will return home. Self-deportation can also be maximized by stepping up the enforcement levels of other existing immigration laws. This course of action offers a reasonable alternative to the false choices currently proposed to deal with the 12 million or more aliens already in the U.S. illegally: either arrest and deport them all, or give them all amnesty.

He then goes on to list several points underneath this to further define what he means by this. 

And then this which I really like:

Enforce Existing Federal Laws. Enforce the laws Congress has already enacted to prevent illegal aliens from unlawfully benefiting from their presence in the country:

• End Sanctuary Cities by cutting off discretionary federal grant funds as appropriate to any community that, by law, ordinance, executive order, or other formal policy directs its public officials not to comply with the provisions of 8 USC 1373 and 8 USC 1644, which prohibit any state or local government from restricting in any way communications with the Department of Homeland Security regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an alien in the United States.
• Deny discretionary Federal education grants as appropriate to public universities that violate federal law by offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens without also offering identical benefits to United States citizens, regardless of whether or not they live in the state, as required by 8 USC 1623.
• Deny discretionary Federal grants as appropriate to states and local governments that violate federal law by offering public benefits to illegal aliens, as prohibited by 8 USC 1621(a).

There is a lot more but it is well worth the time to read.

I like it all!

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Fred Thompson Is A …[GASP!]…Lawyer!!

I'm afraid it's so.  Senator Thompson is a lawyer.  He just doesn't play single on TV, he really is one and he also used to be an effective District Attorney.  There are people who think a lawyer's view is connected to the people they represent.  Such has been the case recently when Senator Thompson was accused of lobbying for some pro-abortion group. 

Fred Thompson also represented criminals at times.  Does that make him pro-criminal?

Anyone with any experience with lawyers understands that.  As a group, they are generally reviled as a necessary evil and I don't usually disagree with that generalization.  The truth is, there are a lot of ethical lawyers out there and the bad ones tend to make more headlines than the good ones. 

Am I worried that Thompson may have done some legal work (which is what seems to be more than the case than any actual lobbying) for someone he or I disagree with?  Not at all.  A lawyer doesn't have to always agree with his or her client.

Thompson explains it this way:

Now-United States Chief Justice John Roberts addressed this notion during his confirmation hearings. "… [I]t's a tradition of the American Bar that goes back before the founding of the country that lawyers are not identified with the positions of their clients. The most famous example probably was John Adams, who represented the British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre."

Roberts pointed out that Adams was actually vindicating the rule of law. Every person, unpopular or not, is entitled to representation. He further said, "That principle that you don't identify the lawyer with the particular views of the client or the views that the lawyer advances on behalf of the client, is critical to the fair administration of justice."

We've all had to deal with lawyers in some way or another.  I had a landlord try to cheat me out 2200 dollars.  The best real estate attorney in town took my case.  When I asked him what I owed him after my case was successfully settled, he told me this. 

"I represent a lot of people whose morals are probably questionable.  I used to take cases from legal aid, but they would send over some people who were a lot more trouble than they were worth, wanting me to file false claims, etc.  I now pick and choose whom I represent pro bono and your case is one of those."

Obviously I was floored, but very grateful!  Obviously he isn't the stereotypical shark. 

The practice of law is a business as well as a profession. It's the way you support your family. And if a client has a legal and ethical right to take a position, then you may appropriately represent him as long as he does not lie or otherwise conduct himself improperly while you are representing him. In almost 30 years of practicing law I must have had hundreds of clients and thousands of conversations about legal matters. Like any good lawyer, I would always try to give my best, objective, and professional opinion on any legal question presented to me.

And that is as it should be.

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I'm With Fred!!!!

I'm With Fred is live and on line!

Fred Thompson finally has a web site up!

I signed up!

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Fred Thompson Has Cancer

So Fred Thompson announced he has a non aggressive form of lymphoma.  Should he run, or should he not?  Frankly, it's up to him, just as it was up to the Edwards'.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican Fred Thompson, the actor-politician who is considering a bid for president, said Wednesday he was diagnosed with lymphoma more than two years ago but the cancer shouldn't affect his life expectancy.

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto, the former Tennessee senator, 64, said doctors discovered that he had non- Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2004. He said the disease is in remission with no illness or symptoms.

"I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't satisfied in my own mind as to the nature of it and the fact that not only will I have an average lifespan but in the meantime I will not be affected in anyway by it," Thompson said. "Now of course nobody knows the future but that has been in the history for almost three years now in terms of no symptoms and no sickness."

McCain has had skin cancer, Rudy's had prostate cancer.  And he's right, nobody does know the future.  Nobody can guarantee anyone they'll have a tomorrow.

I remember my ex-father-in-law.  He was diagnosed with a non aggressive leukemia.  He was told it probably wouldn't be the thing that killed him.  (they were right - he was brutally and senselessly murdered).  The point is, he'd lived for several years to that point with the disease and there was no reason to believe he wouldn't have lived many more had not some whack job killed him for absolutely no reason. 

Let Senator Thiompson and his doctors be the "deciders".

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