Thread: FRED THOMPSON ....fake

CFR Fred Thompson:


Fred Thompson (Lobbyist-lawyer)

When it comes to Fred Thompson’s burgeoning presidential campaign, there are a variety of predictable knocks. He’s lazy. He’s inexperienced. His most valuable skill seems to be his ability to pretend to be someone else. He considers moving to northern Virginia “getting out of Washington.” When it comes to his infamous red truck, he’s a shameless and transparent phony.

But the WaPo’s Jeffrey Birnbaum touches on another potential problem for Thompson’s candidacy, which probably hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Most people think of Thompson as a politician/actor. It’s more accurate to describe him as politician/actor/lobbyist.

By all accounts, Fred D. Thompson will soon be running for president, portraying himself as a Washington outsider on the campaign trail. But over the past three years he showed up every two weeks or so at a lobbying and law firm in downtown D.C. to plot how best to persuade Congress to help a British company.

His main assignment: to use his connections to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to extract information about goings-on inside Congress and use it to benefit his multibillion-dollar client.

In exchange for this insider wisdom he was paid a cool $760,000.

Even casual observers of the presidential race know that in recent years Thompson, a Republican former senator from Tennessee, was a lobbyist between his acting gigs. What is less widely known is what he did in D.C.

And what he did was serve as an “access man” for a British company worried about how asbestos legislation might affect its liabilities. (As Birnbaum put it, “In an earlier era, the term of art for what Thompson did would have been ‘foreign agent.’”)

Now, just to be clear, Thompson’s role as a lobbyist, as far as I know, was entirely legitimate and above-board. Lots of former lawmakers cash in on their congressional careers by moving to K Street offices, and by all appearances, Thompson was good at his job.

But the point isn’t that Thompson’s lobbying career was scandalous, but rather, that Thompson is running for president as some kind of outsider. He’s actually a former high-paid DC corporate lobbyist. The two don’t exactly go together well.

For one thing, there’s a bit of a hypocrisy factor.

On occasion, Thompson lobbied for causes he would later criticize as a senator. For example, Thompson led a Senate effort against “corporate welfare.” As a lobbyist in the 1980s, he represented Westinghouse in its failed bid to win billions in subsidies for a nuclear reactor project in Tennessee, which the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, called “a multibillion-dollar folly.”

But more importantly, there’s the question of “authenticity,” which Paul Krugman explained yesterday.

[C]onsider the case of Fred Thompson. He spent 18 years working as a highly paid lobbyist, wore well-tailored suits and drove a black Lincoln Continental. When he ran for the Senate, however, his campaign reinvented him as a good old boy: it leased a used red pickup truck for him to drive, dressed up in jeans and a work shirt, with a can of Red Man chewing tobacco on the front seat.

But Mr. Thompson’s strength, says Lanny Davis in The Hill, is that he’s “authentic.”

Keep in mind, Dems have tried to highlight this point before. Thompson’s opponent for the Senate in 1994, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), labeled Thompson a “Gucci-wearing, Lincoln-driving, Perrier-drinking, Grey Poupon-spreading millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist,” all of which was true. But Thompson would just point to his red truck — the one he drove “the final few hundred feet before each campaign event, and then ditched it for something nicer as soon as he was out of sight of the yokels” — which somehow managed to quell the criticism.

But that doesn’t mean we won’t hear it again this time around. Michael Crowley said, “I predict it’s not long before his campaign starts talking about ‘Gucci Fred, or something to that effect.” Count on it.

I googled Fred Thompsons red truck, holy hell-o, more stories about Thompson that I've ever seen on any candidate. :laughing: Tells me that somebody is scared. LMAO
GO FRED!!!

Originally Posted by Migi e!

I googled Fred Thompsons red truck, holy hell-o, more stories about Thompson that I've ever seen on any candidate. :laughing: Tells me that somebody is scared. LMAO
GO FRED!!!

Yep. :waving:

Hurray an other actor..

I can't wait for the first President that started off as a porn star. All Hail the celebrity-worship that drives American culture!

I dont know about Fred's lobbying days. I do know about what he's done while in any given office, before he was an "actor" (laughable, because he was in politics 20 years before his first acting job) and after...and its valid. He's got his good and bad points, like any politician, and to be honest I dont know at this point who I'll vote for.

I do, however, know that his credentials are every bit as valid as Hillary's, Barracks, McCains, etc....and he has more experience in Washington than most of them, and with a longer list of valid accomplishments.

I do find it amusing, however, to listen to the clueless and uneducated from the left who scream, "not another actor!". First off, he aint that good an actor....second, he started as an actor playing himself because of a case he handled that toppled corrupt and criminal Democrats in Tennessee over a decade before he took the role.

Oh, and a couple things I do like about Thompson...

He didnt come from "old money", or attend high dollar private schools. His father was a car salesman, and scraped to be able to help send his son to state colleges (Florida State College and Memphis State U). He later went to Vanderbilt for his law degree, and both he and his first wife worked to send him through law school and still support 3 kids.

Also he has both wit and humor. My favorite quote from him is, "After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood." Even his critics admit he's intelligent...even "brilliant", which gives him a leg up on the last two presidents, and a definite advantage over the politician many compare Fred to: Ronald Reagan.

One things for sure: he does have charisma, and charm, and broad ranged appeal. He took Al Gore's senate seat and finished Al's term after the man Gore appointed retired early, and his approval ratings were quite high. One of the big reasons why is that he actually seemed to do what he promised in his campaign.

As a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee, he helped pass the Congressional Accountability Act, making Congress subject to the same labor laws as other businesses. He also sponsored a constitutional amendment to establish term limits, introduced legislation to overhaul the budget process, and co-sponsored a very well thought out campaign finance reform bill that would have, among other things, banned PAC money and required 60 percent of individual contributions to come from a candidate's home state. Not surprisingly, the three measures failed. Politicans seldom vote to limit their income. Thompson continued beating the reform drum during his following campaign. One of his ads featured the senator recounting all the measures that narrowly failed during his first term, with the tag line: "It's a good start" The press seemed to agree, often stating Thompson had the courage to stand firm on tough reform issues, even those that could hurt his popularity with members of Congress.

There are numerous sources online that can give you some insight into candidates, their backgrounds, their good and bad points. So far after seeing all the confirmed candidates, Thompson seems like a strong choice to me...and 6 years ago I'd have probably been ready to vote for him based just on what I know now....

But I want to be certain that the next president actually can accomplish something, and be a solid, viable leader...unlike our last three presidents...and I want to be certain I vote for someone who will do what they promise, not say what they can to get elected, then play "go along" politics.

His views on globalism, NAFTA, FTAA, SPP need to be pinned down. He is a member of the CFR. The membership of this organization are prime promoters
of the above mentioned. Our failed foreign policy has roots back to the CFR.
His membership in that organization disqualifies him as a candidate to trust.

Freddy boy is a blowhard! I thought this thread needed a little dose of reality so I decided to post this little nugget! Seems like Thompson was a Nixon asskisser (after I typed that I had a visual of that in my mind and to say the least it wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination) and political hack. Nixon called him, "dumb as hell."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070707/...pson_watergate

Just wait till MSM finds out that Fred Thompson was legal counsel to Nixon during Watergate.

His being a lawyer for THE OTHER SIDE will suddenly make him a co-conspirator.