Another devastating critique:
He may be the tallest candidate in the race for president, but Fred Thompson is clearly in over his head! In both his fumbling pre-candidacy period and his hesitant, attenuated post-announcement campaign, he’s given the clear impression that that he is ill-informed, inarticulate, badly briefed and downright lazy.
Consider the news his candidacy has generated:
- He refuses to take a pledge not to raise taxes;
- He lobbied for an abortion advocacy group before becoming a U.S. senator;
- He employed his son in a no-show job for $170,000 for four years at his political action committee after leaving office;
- As a lobbyist, he helped the attorney representing the Libyan terrorists who blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, to fight requests to extradite them to the U.K. to stand trial;
- His other lobbying clients included Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the leftist Haitian dictator who, but for a lack of oil, would have been the Hugo Chavez of the last generation;
- He skipped and is skipping the first two debates of his presidential candidacy and said he was looking forward to attending the Oct. 14 New Hampshire debate — the one that was canceled weeks ago;
- He is taking this week off from presidential campaigning;
- He does not know enough about the details of the Terry Schiavo case to comment.;
- He is also unfamiliar with the proposal to lower soaring insurance premiums Floridians must pay for home storm coverage since the hurricanes;
- He said that Iraqis were supporting us because of al Qaeda’s ban on smoking;
- He’s run through three campaign managers and as many communications directors in just three months;
- He fell short in the fundraising competition, coming up with only a net of $2.8 million by the end of July;
- After leaving the Senate, he picked up his lobbying career by representing Equitas, an insurance company he helped dodge paying for asbestos/cancer claims;
- After negative publicity about his comments suggesting that Cuban immigrants were potential suicide bombers, he blamed Hillary Clinton for causing the publicity by “releasing a statement that she made trying to capitalize on something when she knew better”;
- He didn’t know enough about drilling in the Everglades to comment.
Not bad for the first two weeks of a presidential campaign!
Thompson is counting on his conservative positions on social issues and the wunder-dust generated by his “Law & Order” stardom to propel him into the lead in the presidential race. But, as Harriet Miers’s failed candidacy for the Supreme Court suggests, one does not just need to be conservative to prevail. It takes a little talent, too. Thompson seems to lack the interest, energy, will, ability and stamina to compete at this level.
Hillary is probably the next president anyway. But there is only one way to defeat her — to nominate a candidate whose anti-terrorism credentials are so deep that if Americans return to their senses and grasp the nature of the dire and continuing threat we face, he can prevail in November. There are two candidates who fill that bill: Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Neither Thompson nor Romney approach it.
That sounds about right to me.
Read Dick Morris.
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9 Responses to “Dick Morris On Fred Thompson”
September 19th, 2007 at 9:17 am
In another great article by Ken Hughes , he addresses an issue that has bothered me since this campaign started. With politicians like Rudy Gulianni, who seems to think that AMERICA is just a piece of dirt that revolves around New York City, and the beltway politicians and media pundits that think their turf is the hub of AMERICA, finally someone speaks out for the REAL AMERICA, quietly known as “flyover country�.
[link redacted by blog proprietor]
September 19th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Please do not spam my site. It’s fine to disagree with me, but posting irrelevant links is not.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Dick Morris is very much supporting Rudy G. and also very much dislikes or is scared of Fred Thompson. He has published paper after paper beating up on Fred Thompson, yet Thompson continues to do very well and continues to connect with voters (like me). Fred Thompson is not perfect, and Dick Morris is not perfect either (based on several news articles about some problems he has going on). If you want perfect, no on is your guy/gal. If you want a decent person that is a conservative/federalist and you know that he’s not going to change, then Fred could be your guy. I’m sure Dick M. will have another article out tomorrow on Fred and that is sad. It also shows how scared he is that he only beats up on Fred and that the population continues to ignore Dick and listen and stick with Fred. Guess Dick is pretty irrelevant.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
It’s true, you can tell that there are many forces trying to deflate the popularity of Fred Thompson. despite the attacks, Fred rolls on. Anyone with two cents to rub together knows that everyone of the candidates has a bunch of skeletons lurking in their closet and I include Democrats and Republicans in that statement. Most of us could probably list a full page of negatives on any one of the top contenders. We the people will do our best to pick the candidate that best reflects our values.
When I think of “Unify” for some reason Giuliani doesn’t seem to light a bulb. When I see Hillary or especially hear Hillary I cringe. No unity there. But now Fred Thompson, you just know he can work with and instill confidence in anyone.
You just know its FRed!
September 19th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Dickie ‘blubber mush-mouth can “create more fairy tales” than most–he obviously is being paid well to disparage the finest candidate, Fred D. Thompson out of FEAR–he needs to go back to ‘shilling Hill’–where he knows the smut, he’s lived it.
No wise man or woman would ever fear the obviously excellent qualities of FRED–he’s got what AMERICA needs now, and the American voters know it. When both sides are attacking — reality says this is the best!!! WIN FRED WIN.
Dickie M, take your marbles and go home and play, your trash game is simply wrong and disgusting!.
September 19th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Just off the top of my head I can refute many on this list… example… Iraqi’s WERE angered by al Qaeda’s smoking ban which included the penalty of cutting off two fingers… so they chose to side with US Forces and helped kick al Qaeda out of their towns… verified by Ambassador Ryan Crocker’s testimoney to the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Commmittee on 9/10/07… taking this week off? He was in Florida yesterday… Texas Today… doesn’t sound like time off to me. With regard to the lobbying questions… he couldn’t have done much for any of those people as he was only making 40k a year… that’s about 1/20 the average Lobbyist paycheck inside the beltway. So you have to ask why would Dick be making neg stuff up about Fred if he really was such a horrible candidate and one might also ask why is he a strong #2 in the polls… leading in one of 3 early primary states (SC) 2nd in another (IA) and gaining lots of ground in the 3rd (NH). Go Fred – Beat Hillary
September 19th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
this article is only ‘devasting’ to those who agree with dickie…it shows how uninformed he really is and THAT should ‘devastate’ them…sorry, everything dickie points out or attempts to show is a lie/halftruth and that’s not worth reading…try again…
September 19th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Funnily, Morris leaves out Giuliani’s own lobbyist connections to Hugo Chavez. Talk about turning the blind eye.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Does Morris want us to think that lobbying is not a noble profession? Dick Morris, the toe sucker? You’ve got to be kidding.
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