Thompson explains the Anbar Awakening
Earlier this week, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said it’s not too late for Fred Thompson to compete for the GOP nomination, but to make up for lost time, the former senator must demonstrate “a command over policy issues.” Fleischer added, “He’s got to knock the policy questions out of the park.”
Freshly minted GOP White House hopeful Fred Thompson puzzled Iowans yesterday by insisting an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side.
“They said, ‘You gotta quit smoking,'” Thompson explained to a questioner asking about progress in Iraq during a town hall-style meeting. […]
Thompson’s tale of a smokers’ revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.
“I don’t know what that was about,” said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.
Thompson’s been getting a lot of that lately.
Just from the last couple of days:
* He’s having trouble explaining his position on Social Security, despite his assertion that the issue is one of the reasons he’s running for president.
* Thompson dismissed the significance of Osama bin Laden, describing him as “more symbolism than anything else.”
* He believes “we better figure out a way” to combat al Qaeda. Not that he necessarily knows how, of course, only that “we better figure out a way.”
* Thompson proposed a bizarre constitutional amendment on gay marriage yesterday, and argued that “zero” state legislatures “have affirmatively approved gay marriage,” a claim that happens to be wrong.
No wonder this guy is ducking debates; he’s nowhere near ready for prime time.
Maybe Frederick of Hollywood is onto something. If we have to ‘figure a way out’ to fight al qaeda, and public reaction to their smoking bans runs them out of town on a rail, the answer is obvious! Massive tobacco subsidies!!
JoeW – LOL
Also, I think that Freddy, (in the same statement) also dismissed the significance of Rudy Giuliani, describing him as “more symbolism than anything else.”
A clueless puppet without a puppeteer. Dangerous when you consider the kinds of people out there just drooling over the prospect of pulling the strings of a dummy like this.
***…he’s nowhere near ready for prime time.***
But he’s clearly ready for Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy*-Fun-in-the-Bubble time—just like the blithering babblesqueak we’ve got in the Bubble now. I still say we ought to just drop the withered old cretin on the Pakistani Mountains….
*Note to Reader: A Fred Thompson presidency would be the Oval Office version of the Ren and Stimpy Show. Would you really want to give such an animated misfit access to a nuclear arsenal? I didn’t think so….
As Ronald Reagan proved so thoroughly, a candidate doesn’t need to know anything about anything. All it takes cue cards. In fact, with the American public, it helps if what brilliance he might have remains hidden under a bushel basket.
The only talent Americans respect is exhibited on the NASCAR oval or the NFL gridiron. We also respect the ability to become a billionaire but, given economic realities, that’s an outcome which will surely elude all but the tiniest fraction of a percent of us. That our countrymen still value such a goal for only shows how ignorant we’ve become. Our grandparents were more realistic: they formed unions and fought.
Other talents (neurosurgery, knowledge of computers or modern weapons systems, how to respond to another Katrina or 9/11, how to shift wealth from the have-nots to the haves) would be nice for someone to have, but we’d rather not hear about them. We’ve bought the TeeVee-deep fairy tale for grownups, derived from the myth of Divine Right — we changed the name to Manifest Destiny, which in the 20th century evolved into the myth of American Superiority.
Anyone who says we’re not superior in every respect simply won’t be listened to. The fact that we have continuously to build up massive debt, mostly to the Chinese, in order to sustain our comfortable myth isn’t our problem. That Reagan and the two Bushes are responsible for 70% percent of our entire debt simply proves my point. Surely our educationally short-changed children and grandchildren can find a way to deal with that debt we’ve incurred. They are superior, after all … geniuses at memorizing TeeVee shows and playing Video games. You know, reality.
I think Freddie can act the part of an amiable, ignorant rube. He’s a natural. Take him seriously.
I screwed up. Mea culpa. “goal for only ” should have said “goal for OURSELVES only”. And I meant to say “TO the have-nots FROM the haves”.
Thompson’s tale of a smokers’ revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.
I guess Larry Craig and Mark Foley can’t join, then. Maybe that’s what he was talking about.
He was a lawyer once, right?
Damn, W and Freddie could have a debate on anything from nuclear physics to the insanity of Britney Spears and it would all merge into the same inane bullshit.
Appears that Freddie has mastered looking the role, but not BEING the role.
“I don’t know what that was about,” said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.
Then again, maybe he just hasn’t opened his eyes since 1970, and he thought that every everyman out there still smokes, so accusing Al Qaeda of being against smokers was some good populist stumping.
Otherwise, maybe he thought it was a good slight against Iraqi-would be terrorists, and a way to ingratiate himself with the audience- Iraqis won’t quit smoking to be in Al Qaeda, therefore they’re a bunch of chumps who aren’t too committed to what they’re doing, or Al Qaeda isn’t good at attracting fanatics anymore, or we’re winning in Iraq, etc.
Either way, it shows a certain distance, a lack of an ability to connect to people that Thompson is flopping so badly with these remarks.
Huckleberry Fred seems convinced that if he just drawls his way through some platitudes he’ll be victorious before they roll the credits.
Fleischer added, “He’s got to knock the policy questions out of the park.”
In a recent speech delivered in Council Bluffs, IA, Thompson stated his conviction that “our basic rights come from God, not from government.” That’s a swing and a miss on the Constitution for Thompson.
If the Republicans are pining so badly for another Reagan they should find someone who is more like Reagan was at the beginning of his presidency rather than at the end of it.
i wonder if thompson read michael yon’s latest dispatch, which noted that cigarettes are back on sale openly in iraq, a sign of progress.
I feel better about not having Alberto Gonzales to kick around anymore. Now we have a brand new Fredo, with the added benefit that it’s his real name!!
Or close enough to be going on with. 😉
Why do you keep treating this guy with tact and understanding. “…Not ready for prime time”?? He’s an idiot. His campaign is composed of smearing democrats and…whatever Bush said…and more fear mongering. I was hoping he would stay out of the campaign because he’s just an embarrassment to the whole election process. He can’t “act” his way through it like he’s done with everything else. Backers thought they could just write his material for him and he’d be fine but he is so shallow that taken off script he literally makes no sense. The GOP is desperately grasping at straws and coming up gravely disappointed. The party of greed and hypocrisy gets only Dem smearers and Bush cheerleaders and act shocked that they have no viable candidates…DUH!
All of the Dem candidates are good…but only two are different from the rest. Dems will win ’08 by default but lose in 2012 because they didn’t get Bush to end his war and will get blamed for everything when they try to end it.
So Thompson..yeah, who cares…just a body to fill the void in a useless effort. It’s a no-brainer(pardon the pun)
Dems will win ‘08 by default but lose in 2012 because they didn’t get Bush to end his war and will get blamed for everything when they try to end it.
That’s assuming they do try to end it. I’m afraid the Dems’ morbid fear of the GOP’s developing stab-in-the-back myth will keep them from actually trying to end the war, with the result that they’ll hopelessly alienate their base and thus lose in 2012.
In a recent speech delivered in Council Bluffs, IA, Thompson stated his conviction that “our basic rights come from God, not from government.” That’s a swing and a miss on the Constitution for Thompson.
Actually, the Constitution says nothing about where our rights come from. But the Declaration of Independence says that people are “endowed by their creator” with them and that the purpose of government is “to secure these rights.”
I’m not saying this in order to make some right-wing point — I’m an ACLU member — but it actually makes good sense to think of rights as existing prior to government, so that the job of government is to secure our rights. That gives us a good criterion on which to judge the legitimacy of any government: whether or not it does secure our rights.
So, even if you don’t believe in God and/or think rights are socially constructed rather than pre-existing, it’s helpful not to think of rights as coming from government, because that tends to wrongly imply that it’s up to the government to decide what rights to “give” to the people, and that’s no way to protect rights.
One remark like that and you are ready to reject him as being stupid. And I bet you were all in favor of him before that — right? I don’t think so. The fact that you folks are jumping all over this little comment shows just how SCARED you are of a Thompson candidacy cutting short Hillary’s and Obama’s political careers. By the way, I’ have yet to hear someone compare Hillary and Obama with Albert Einstein.