Thompson Out, Can We Get Back To "Real Clear Politics?"

Fred Thompson is out.

That makes me very sad because he was always the front-runner in my mind. I don't know why GOP voters didn't find him as appealing as I did -- conservative, low-key, trustworthy, right on the issues, no-nonsense.

But they didn't and now he's out.

Sad as that is, maybe now the Reader Articles section of Real Clear Politics can get back to reality. I'm sick of the puerile silliness that's been going on there lately, as any pro-Thompson post, no matter how dimwitted and lame, can rack up dozens of points and keep any number of better, more insightful posts on subjects other than Thompson off the RCP home page.

Readers Articles is not a presidential poll; it is a place for worthy posts to be recognized as worthy. If it now gets back to normal, that's great -- it's just unfortunate it took the collapse of Thompson to do it.

And it will be very unfortunate if I get boycotted for speaking the truth.

Stretching The Debate

The just-aired Republican debate on Fox ran for one hour and a tad over five minutes. It took Incredible Wife and me one hour and 53 minutes to watch it, since we used our DVR to pause and discussed points regularly, and we played back some parts a few times.

How long did it take you to watch it? Your neighbors?

DVRs and Tivos have changed American politics in a very major way by giving us a better, richer, more complete debate experience.

And at the end of this technologically enhanced experience, we came away with an overwhelming winner that surprised both of us: Fred Thompson, with Mitt Romney as a good also-ran.

Politico's Thompson Play Sooo Old School

Fred Thompson did not resign after tying for third in Iowa, as The Politico said he would. Still, that couldn't keep the Web-rag from coming up with this misleading headline this morning: Resignation greets Thompson's third place.

Not that kind of resignation, dummy -- the "oh, well ... sheesh" kind of resignation. Never mind that it was Politico that started the whole resignation speculation bit anyway.

Politico needs to decide whether it's going to be a good news outlet or a goofball news outlet, and sophomoric headline tricks like this point it in the goofball direction.

The article itself makes it clear that Thompson, while worried about finances, isn't finished yet:

He asked the crowd where he needs to go next. At their shouts of “South Carolina!” Thompson nodded approvingly. Thompson’s last best shot will be in the south, where he polls significantly better than New Hampshire.

Thompson implied he might soon drop out of the race, saying, “We’ll have to look at our finance numbers.”

But there’s nothing like playing to a crowd with low expectations.

“It looks like someone’s gonna have to carry a strong conservative message, and it looks like it’s gonna be me.” The crowd went wild as if Thompson had just sworn up and down that he was sure to win.

Not in the article is any mention of the pub's Tuesday evening article predicting that Thompson would resign if he did not finish in second place. Not any inside scoop -- or confession -- detailing on how they got duped by a few opportunistic political operatives, missing the oldest political trick in the book.

How very old school of this new media outlet. My trust factor in Politico just dropped down, waaay down.

hat-tip: memeorandum; art: The Ward View

Will Huck Collapse In Time To Save Fred?

Updated

If Iowa voters tire sufficiently of Huckabee's foreign policy ineptness, domestic policy liberalism and shameless exploiting of press conferences to shame Mitt by deciding to not shame Mitt, Thompson just might be able to stay in the race long enough to reach the more accepting grounds of South Carolina:

DES MOINES, Iowa – Several Republican officials close to Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign said they expect the candidate will drop out of the race within days if he finishes poorly in Thursday’s Iowa caucus.

Thompson’s campaign, which last spring and summer was generating fevered anticipation in the media and with some Republican activists, has never ignited nationally, and there are no signs of a late spark happening here in Iowa, where even a third-place finish is far from assured.

This reality—combined with a fundraising drought—left well-connected friends and advisers of Thompson Wednesday evening predicting that he will pull the plug on hype and hope before the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary. (The Pundit)

If the Pundit's sources are correct -- and I'll get to that in a minute -- it will leave GOP conservatives with complicated pickings. Neither Romney nor Giuliani nor McCain offer a clear choice, leaving this as a race that will be forever remembered not by its lack of candidates that say they are like Reagan, but by the lack of candidates that are, in fact, anything remotely like Reagan.

Thompson's weakness is in part his own to claim. First, he appeared indecisive and strange in his process of entering the name, then he failed to turn on any emotion. On the other hand, he has refused to campaign the way candidates are expected to campaign, guaranteeing that whatever his fate in 2008, political operatives will spend a lot of time tracing his footsteps. (As nicely described by Q&O.)

As for the Politico story's credibility, it quotes several different Thompson campaign sources and cites the candidates own behavior ...

But Thompson lately has been dropping clear signals that he has reached an up-or-out moment of his own. On Wednesday he took the unusual step of raising expectations for himself at a time when most other candidates are trying to lower them.

When asked what Iowa results he’d be happy with, Thompson held up two fingers, indicating a second-place finish, according to reporters who were with him.

He did something similar on Sunday, when Thompson—apparently in a semi-jocular mood—dismayed his staff by telling reporters that he needed to finish second in the caucuses, a bar that nobody here expects him to cross.

... so it appears to be a bit better than the average punditry. But it is punditry, so hang tight and read the reality, not the tea leaves.

Update: The Thompson campaign strongly denies the Politico report, says Byron York at The Corner:

I just got off the phone with Rich Galen, a top adviser to Fred Thompson, and it would be an understament to say that he is strongly denying the Politico story reporting that Thompson "will drop out of the race within days if he finishes poorly in Thursday's caucus."

Galen says he confirmed the denial with Thompson himself before issuing it. (hat-tip: memeorandum)

Thompson's Brilliant Response To Abortion Story

Saturday, five days ago, is an eon ago in the world of presidential campaigning, where positions must be formed now and responses can't wait.

So when Saturday's charges in the LA Times against Fred Thompson, accusing him of representing abortion hawks a couple decades back surfaced, there was an initial staff comment. Then Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday passed.

And finally, today, Fred Thompson responded ... without mentioning the LAT or abortion at all. And without going to the dinosaur media.

Instead of splitting hairs and falling into the he said/she said trap, Thompson picked the most respected lawyers on the Web, the boys at Power Line, and wrote not about whether he represented abortionists, but instead about being a lawyer candidate for president ...

A lawyer who is a candidate or a prospective candidate for office finds himself in an interesting position because of the nature of the legal profession and the practice of law. This is true when the practice was as varied as mine, and it’s especially true when the office being considered is the Presidency of the United States.

The easiest and most generally used tactic when running against a lawyer is to trade off a general perception that most people dislike lawyers. Goodness knows that a lot of lawyers have earned disfavor but, as it turns out, folks understand our system better than a lot of politicians think they do. In my first run for the Senate, my opponent tried the old demagoguery route – “He has even represented criminals!” – to no avail.

A first cousin of this ploy is to associate the lawyer with the views of his client. 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.”

... and then about representing murderers, crooks and other nefarious sorts, just as Adams and Lincoln before him had:

As an idealistic teen-ager I could think of nothing more inspiring than the notion of representing a just cause against the most powerful forces in the country, including the government. I’ve had a chance to do some of that. It’s fair to say that not all of my clients have been so praiseworthy. Some were, in deed, accused of crimes. Some were convicted against my best efforts.

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.

As an issues management expert, I'd say Thompson managed this issue expertly. He fell into no traps, managed to cloak himself in Lincoln, Adams and Roberts, explained whatever may or may not have happened fully, and didn't even bother to mention the name of the scurrilous abortion maven who started the affair.

Did he drive a stake through the heart of the issue? No. It's still there and people might use it against him. But the people who will use it, and the people who will be influenced by it, will not be voting for Thompson anyway.

Those of us who are seriously kicking his tires and checking under his hood will most likely come away impressed, as I did. This is a man of subtlety, strategy and grace, someone who appears capable of approaching the job of president with a Reaganesque calm.

A Stink In The Ink At The LA Times

Rarely does one see the Left grab and twist a story as rapidly as AP jumped on the story of Fred Thompson, abortion lobbyist. Oh, did we forget to say "alleged?" So sue us.

AP wrangled its story out of an LA Times piece this a.m. alleging that Thompson, while working as a lobbyist at Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, was hired by National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. to lobby the White House, specifically John Sununu, against a Bush proposal to prohibit abortion counseling in clinics that receive federal funds.

Making the allegations is the abortion group's CEO, Judith DeSarno, a flaming lefty pictured on the right. She's a bigtime Hillary supporter (not that you'd get that tidbit from the LAT), and, as an abortion rights advocate, someone well seasoned in ignoring the truth ("Embryos are just protoplasm!") and spreading lies ("There are medical reasons for partial birth abortion!").

While the LAT story is in the long tradition of that paper's hit pieces against anything with GOP chromosomes, the paper at least played like journalists and put info countering the abortionist's claims:

• Quotes of denial from a Thompson spokesperson
• No billing records exist supporting the abortionists
• Quotes from Sununu saying doesn't remember ever being lobbied by Thompson on the matter and finds it highly unlikely

Now here's the AP story, in toto:

Thompson says no recollection of lobbying to ease abortion rules

Associated Press - July 6, 2007 8:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - Fred Thompson says he "has no recollection" of lobbying on behalf of a family planning group.

The LA times reports that back in 1991 Thompson lobbied then President George Bush to relax a regulation that prevents federally funded clinics from offering abortion counseling.

Minutes of a 1991 meeting, cited by the Times, said Thompson had been hired to help in discussions with the president's office.

A spokesman for Thompson says it's "not unusual" for lawyers to be asked to give advice to colleagues for clients with whom they personally disagree.

But the former head of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association says she specifically remembers discussing Thompson's lobbying work with him in phone conversations and during meals at Washington restaurants.

The former senator is weighing a Republican presidential bid as a social conservative.

AP leads with "no recollection" from Thompson, not the aide's strong denial; in fact, the aide's weakest quote is the only quote AP goes with. And where are the denials from Sununu? Nowhere to be found.

NewsBusters focused nicely on the last line:

I wonder how many times they have used such language to describe any of the Democrat candidates? Have they ever said that Hillary is running as the "social liberal candidate"? I doubt it. Additionally, how many Republicans are NOT running as a social conservative, anyway? (Even Rudy tried to run as a social conservative at first, until called upon it)

The AP story, though, is the one that will move across the nation, not the LAT piece, because nearly all broadcast and print outlets subscribe to AP, while the LAT wire is far less popular. One would think that would give AP a greater sense of responsibility and a stronger commitment to fairness, but instead, they've assumed the role of news bully, owning the playground and doing what they darn well please.

But AP wouldn't have a story if the LAT hadn't gone first, and on that score, there's a lot of stink in the ink, says NewsBusters:

Of course, there's more. Nearly every person mentioned in the Times story has a heavy left-wing activist and/or Hillary Campaign connection, yet this is never once mentioned. When one discovers the backgrounds of those making these claims against Thompson, it smells more and more like a pure Hillary dirty trick swallowed whole by the AP and promulgated by the L.A.Times than a purely honest story.

The Clintons have a long history of crushing opponents under innuendo and false claims, actions that should be easy enough for a great big, serious newspaper like the LAT to investigate. Somehow I don't think we'll be seeing that story any time soon.

Thompson on Fox

I sure like what Fred Thompson is saying not on Fox. The first thing I heard was his response to a question from Sean about an earlier FT quote on "evil nations." He said everyone's on our side, except a few nations that support terror -- very different from "you're with us or against us."

Also this:

SH: Knowing what you know now, do you think the war in Iraq was wrong?

FT: People don't think enough about what would have happened if we didn't go to war with Iraq.

He then talked about Saddam in power with his crazy sons, his "people-shredders," his violation of UN resolutions, his corruption of the UN, and his will to have nukes -- a will that would be manifestly greater now with Ahmadinejad pursuing a bomb.

On Libby: He called it tragedy and a break-down of government and was extremely hard on the prosecutor who acted "because the press expected the special prosecutor to come up with someone in the administration."

He got me with a promise that he would pardon Libby today if he were president. Are you listening W?

On the three issues that cause people to question his conservatism:

First, he checked a box that abortion should be legal.

FT: I don't remember that box. I'm not sure I filled out that form.

He slammed Roe vs. Wade, and said the states should have some leeway.

McCain-Feingold:

He agreed that too much money was spent on politics, thanks to the Clintons' model (nice!). He wants to do away with soft money, which I agree with; it should all be reportable and direct. The rest of the bill he would appeal.

Clinton impeachment:

He said his role was to be a judge, not to vote how he felt about Clinton (nice, again!), so he split his impeachment vote.

He has a wonderful voice, a good sense of humor. He speaks clearly. Here's what he'd say to the American people upon election:

• explain the significance of the war on terror
• explain why we must overhaul taxes
• say we need taxes low to keep the economy going
• and say we can't continue down the social security/entitlement programs

I didn't hear one bad answer -- and more important, I didn't hear one waffle of slick bridge to another subject. There's not one Dem candidate who could stand up to his forthrightness -- if he can keep it this strong.