WHY I CAN'T SUPPORT FRED THOMPSON by Tim Siggia

WHY I CAN'T SUPPORT FRED THOMPSON

By Tim Siggia

November 27, 2007

As I'm sure many of you have been, I've been getting a lot of calls lately from all sorts of groups, PACs, and other such organizations, and may God forever bless whoever invented Caller ID, for I've been making judicious use of that. As I've become familiar with Caller ID, I've also caught on to certain little tricks. Most of these solicitors are up front about who they are, but some can be sly, and I've learned not to answer such giveaway identifications as "Toll-Free Call" and calls identified by city and state only -- particularly if they come from cities and states where I know for a fact I have neither friends nor family.

One of these all-too frequent callers is the Fred Thompson campaign, which, to its credit, is one of the up-front and honest callers. Up to now I've been simply letting the phone ring, knowing that this caller will not leave a message (they never do). I figure I don't need to start arguing with some solicitor who's convinced that "Tim Siggia" is simply an a.k.a. for either Bill Gates or Carlos Slim. But the next time Fred Thompson calls, I just may answer the phone if I'm home to take the call, and tell the caller why I cannot support his candidate. (Then again, maybe he'll come across this site and read this column, and thus save me the trouble.) Before I go any further with this, let me first reaffirm my respect for our beloved webmaster, Don Dodd, whom we all know to be a Thompson supporter. He has, some months ago, laid out his well-thought-out reasons for supporting Thompson, and I respect his opinions on this. I am also confident, however, that he will respect my right to disagree with him on this one issue. Even the best of friends, after all, are never in total agreement on everything.

Many of us, I am sure, were more than slightly troubled at Fred Thompson's very late entry into the race. To be sure, there is something to be said for cautious prudence. In this case, however, I think most will agree that the former Tennessee senator was cautious to a fault, and that when he finally made the overly long-awaited announcement it had more of an anticlimactic effect than a climactic one. This, however, is not my main bone of contention with Mr. Thompson. What I find more particularly troubling than anything else is his voting record as a United States Senator.

Like nearly every other Republican in the race for president -- even Rudy Giuliani, though more by innuendo than direct claim -- Fred Thompson has billed himself as a conservative. But particularly when a candidate has been a U. S. Senator, I think we can all agree that it is his votes, not his words, that tell us who he really is. To be sure, as Don has already pointed out, much of Thompson's voting record has been along conservative lines. On at least two different occasions, however, Fred Thompson had the opportunity to show himself a true conservative, and on both those occasions he failed the test. Both were on crucial matters. First, he voted with the Democrats for passage of the blatantly unconstitutional McCain-Feingold bill for so-called campaign finance reform. The act, which incredibly was signed into law by President Bush, was supposed to "get the money out of politics". What it actually has done has made a mockery of the so-called intent. It has led first of all to a direct attack on the First Amendment to the Constitution, limiting not only how much money can be contributed by an individual to a candidates campaign, but also effectively gagging any attempts to campaign during the final days leading up to the election. It has also led to the formation of "527" groups organized specifically for candidates and parties, particularly the Democrats, to circumvent those very limits the Democrats lobbied to put into place to begin with. Second, back on February 12, 1999 -- ironically the anniversary of Lincoln's birthday -- Thompson voted, again with the Democrats, to acquit President Bill Clinton of the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice brought against him in his impeachment by the House of Representatives -- charges which Thompson and the others who voted for Clinton's acquittal knew to be true -- and keep "Slick Willie" in the Oval Office after he had clearly shown himself morally unfit to be president. No genuine conservative would have cast either of these votes, no matter how loudly Thompson might protest that he is the "real conservative" in this race.

What common thread unites all three of these particular events? Plainly and simply, it's expediency. In each case, Fred Thompson chose to do not what was right, but what was safe. Admittedly, most Americans do not want one to be president whom they suspect will act rashly. Fred Thompson, in each of these cases however, has taken caution to a near-ridiculous extreme. It might have been risky to get into the race too soon. Voting against McCain-Feingold might have been interpreted by some as being in favor of corruption, and we can't have that perception. Voting to remove Bill Clinton from office might make enemies of influential Friends of Bill whose help might be needed at some future time -- plus it might have placed his membership in the Club of 100 in jeopardy. In each case, when the matter at hand called for courage and leadership, Thompson chose the safe route, the one least likely to rock the boat, He chose to go along to get along. This might be Fred Thompson's idea of leadership, but it sure ain't this old sailor's!

When keeping your Senate seat becomes more important to you than the reason you were sent to the Senate in the first place, you no longer deserve to sit in that seat. Neither do you deserve to be elected president. What Fred Thompson has clearly demonstrated, to me at least, is that when it comes time for him to make a key decision, Fred Thompson's going to do what's good for Fred Thompson -- not necessarily what's good for the country. And that we don't need.

Anyone who's read my columns regularly knows I'm neither a Friend of Bill nor a Friend of Hill, and that I'd personally rather see a department store mannequin sitting in the Oval Office than Her Royal Most Imperial Majesty. The dummy, by definition, won't be any brainiac, but, by the same token, will probably have more elementary common sense in its wooden head than the so-called Smartest Woman In The World ever had. So obviously, if Hillary Clinton and Fred Thompson emerge as the standard-bearers for their respective parties, I and others who think like me are admittedly going to be up against it. But we're not there yet -- and right now, with the primaries still ahead of us, alternatives to Hillary Clinton still exist who are far preferable to Fred Thompson.