Fred Thompson: a little behind the times
Ever since former senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) declared he was running for the GOP presidential nomination, there have been rumors (or more accurately, plenty of evidence) that he is (and was) lazy and had an extremely undistinguished record in his 8 years in Congress. But it may appear that he simply isn’t up to date with current events, either. A snippet from the linked interview in response to a question about Iran:
We’re seeing some success with some minor economic sanctions right now. I think the best way to describe it as probably aggravating the Iranians more than anything. It’s not really hurting them. I’m afraid that the Soviet Union & China are not ever going to do anything that’s going to hurt them that badly but we need to ratchet those up if at all possible. I think that the diplomatic route still has some possibilities.
Someone should remind Thompson that the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 - three years before Thompson was even elected to the Senate. He wouldn’t be the first Republican in recent history running for the White House, though, who has struggled intellectually.
(hat tip to The Right’s Field)
Thompson may not know recent history but he certainly has had his way with Newsweek editors. Our study of Newsweek coverage of GOP candidates from Sept’06-Sept’07, shows Thompson wins hands down.
Newsweek wrote 17 articles on Thompson–more than half before he declared–the other candidates had many less.
We wrote: “”Skim the last 12 months of news and you’ll see that no publication has followed Thompson’s political him-hawing like Newsweek. A total of 17 Newsweek articles - including a September cover story - feature Thompson. Meanwhile, the competition is suffering. John McCain’s got 10 articles. Rudy Giuliani’s got 7. The fading Mitt Romney has 6. Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, a paltry 1. The rest of the major declared candidates Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter don’t even register on the Fred-philic pages of Newsweek.” http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-94.php.
Stinkyjournalism.org tried to get Newsweek to explain but they refused to respond to our inquiries. That’s why we made the “The Thompson Twins music video”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgtLrQijdxo and consider spreading the word.
Our goal is to hold the media accountable. Democracy depends on the ethical standards practiced by the press.
Rhonda,
I have no doubt that Thompson got quite a bit of press coverage before he actually declared. Given how lackadaisical the GOP field has been to date, there was a need to cover someone else more in-depth. That turned out to be Thompson, who is now being revealed as somewhat of a lethargic campaigner who doesn’t really stand for much else besides cutting taxes and ‘federalism’, a principle which the current incarnation of his party seems to have forgotten about.
Maybe its all just a ploy to set the bar low? doubt it but there’s an interesting politco article about him
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6244.html
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