by hilzoy
This is pretty interesting:
“Former Tennessee Sen. Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as a “pro-life” Republican, accepted a lobbying assignment from a family-planning group to persuade the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and five people familiar with the matter.
A spokesman for the former senator denied that Thompson did the lobbying work. But minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. show that the group hired Thompson that year.”
More below the fold.
“Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period,” he said in an e-mail.
In a telephone interview, he added: “There’s no documents to prove it, there’s no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn’t happen.” In a separate interview, John Sununu, the White House official whom Thompson was hired to contact, said he had no memory of any lobbying and doubted it took place.
But Judith DeSarno, who was president of the family planning association in 1991, said Thompson lobbied for the group for several months.
Minutes of the board’s meeting of Sept. 14, 1991, a copy of which DeSarno gave to The Times, say: “Judy [DeSarno] reported that the Association had hired Fred Thompson, Esq., as counsel to aid us in discussions with the Administration” on the abortion-counseling rule.
Former Rep. Michael Barnes of Maryland, a colleague at the lobbying and law firm where Thompson worked, said DeSarno had asked him to recommend someone for the lobbying work, and that he had suggested that she hire Thompson. He said it was “absolutely bizarre” for Thompson to deny that he lobbied against the abortion counseling rule.
“I talked to him while he was doing it, and I talked to [DeSarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work that he was doing for her organization,” said Barnes, a Democrat. “I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is fact.”
DeSarno said Thompson reported to her, after being hired, that he had held multiple conversations about the abortion “gag rule” with Sununu, who was then the White House chief of staff and the president’s point man on the abortion rule.
Thompson kept her updated on his progress, she said, in telephone conversations and over meals at Washington restaurants, including dinner at Galileo and lunch at the Monocle.
At one of the meals, she recalled, Thompson re-enacted a cowboy death scene from one of his movies. She also remembered him telling her that Sununu had just given him tickets for a VIP tour of the White House for one of Thompson’s sons and his wife.
“It would be an odd thing for me to construct that thing out of whole cloth,” she said. “It happened, and I think it’s quite astonishing they’re denying it.”
Sununu said in a telephone interview: “I don’t recall him ever lobbying me on that at all. I don’t think that ever happened. In fact, I know that never happened.”
He added that he had “absolutely no idea” whether Thompson had met with anybody else at the White House, but said it would have been a waste of time, given the president’s opposition to abortion rights.
In response to Sununu’s denial, DeSarno said Thompson “owes NFPRHA a bunch of money” if he never talked to him, as he said he had.
At the time, Thompson was a lobbyist and lawyer “of counsel” to Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, a Washington firm.
DeSarno said the family planning association paid the firm for Thompson’s work. Marc Fleischaker, the chairman of Arent Fox, declined to comment.”
This is peculiar. There are documents saying they hired Thompson. The person who hired him, someone who worked with him, and three other people say he lobbied against the abortion restrictions. Sununu and Thompson’s spokesman just as emphatically say he didn’t. His ex-employer, whose records could presumably clear this up, isn’t talking. Very odd.
If Thompson did lobby for this group, I’d be somewhat relieved that he’s not as pro-life as he says he is, though that relief would be tempered by the fact that he will have to act as though he is, which is just as bad. On the other hand, I’d be dismayed by what it said about his honesty and integrity. On the third hand, and examples should always have at least three hands, I wasn’t going to vote for him anyways, so my views on this don’t matter all that much.
If he didn’t, then it’s pretty strange that all these people are saying he did. And they are all emphatic enough that it’s hard to see how some sort of misunderstanding could account for this.
As I said: peculiar. (h/t Kevin Drum.)
It seems to me that there are a lot of Republicans running for national office who change their position on abortion from being for choice to being against it, but I don’t recall any Democrats going in the other direction. Am I wrong about that? If not, what would be the explanation?
Ted, Dennis Kucinich used to be pro-life and flipped on that prior to his entrance into the 2004 race.
On the other hand, I’d be dismayed by what it said about [Thompson’s] honesty and integrity.
Add it to the pile. He was a mole for Nixon during Watergate, nd then a lobbyist for 17 years.
None of the frontrunner GOP candidates have consistent positions on abortion. Giuliani’s come closest, by finally (after dancing around the issue) admitting he’s pro-choice. Romney’s was pro-choice before he decided anti-choice was the way to go to appeal to the GOP base (on that, and on so many other social issues).
I don’t think abortion will be a big issue for the GOP in 2008. The SCOTUS has already moved Right, and the new Justices have already belied their confirmation testimony about respecting precedent. Overturning Roe is just a matter of time, waiting for a case to be brought.
(It’ll be interesting, though, to see what effect the 6th Circuit Court’s decision on standing will have on anti-choice groups looking for a case to bring to the SCOTUS. They’re either going to have to find someone who had an abortion and now regrets it, or try something really novel, like bringing a case on behalf of aborted fetuses.)
Anyway, the hot button issues for the GOP seem to be immigration and terrorism. That’ll be interesting to watch, too, since the latest news about the aborted bomb attacks in Great Britain have kicked the legs out from under the “we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” rhetoric.
On the one hand, many lawyers work with and for clients with whom they may disagree philosophically.
On the other hand, it is possible one may claim certain discussions took place, bill for them, be paid for them, and never have actually had those conversations. This would explain the contradictory statements.
On the third hand (because these things should always have three hands) if the second hand is correct, then I believe this may be considered fraud, reason for disbarrment and possibly felonious behavior.
“it is possible one may claim certain discussions took place, bill for them, be paid for them, and never have actually had those conversations.”
Just the sort of fellow one would want for a President.
Sheesh.
“At one of the meals, she recalled, Thompson re-enacted a cowboy death scene from one of his movies.”
According to his imdb.com profile, he was only in one western movie. Can’t confirm if he died in that movie. Sounds like this lady has an agenda.
I think the movie might be Thunderheart, which takes place on the Sioux reservation at Ogalala. It’s not listed as a Western, but as a mystery. The director (Michael Apted) made a documentary about the Leonard Peltier at about the same time focussing on the death of two FBI agents, so it might be the one. The imdb entry has it occurring at about the time that Thompson would have been lobbying. I haven’t seen the movie, but I did see the documentary, which I recommend.
Is it just me, or is that phrase becoming one of the most tiresome of the decade, so far? Given the woman’s position, it’s not exactly rocket science to figure out that she has an ‘agenda,’ just like everyone else who’s lobbying, or hiring lobbyists. The question is not ‘Does person X have an agenda,’ but rather ‘Is person X telling the truth.’
“Sounds like this lady has an agenda.”
Uh, yes, regardless of whether Thompson has been in one, two, or three, films characterizable as “Westerns,” Judith DeSarno’s statement about an anecdote certainly proves her unreliable veracity — the logic of that is entirely clear.
To the writer, at least.
There’s more to Thompson and this than what Hilzoy quotes; further down:
Myself, I don’t find that “I don’t remember” is the equivalent of “that never happened,” but as always, it’s up to folks to come to their own conclusions as to what they find credible.
And, to be sure, Thompson has made two separate careers out of looking and sounding credible. I’ll give him credit myself for doing a better job of that than George W. Bush.
Low bar, to put it mildly, of course.
But maybe his staff wrote that first-person note on the form. That’s the ticket.
Redstate (or some there, anyway) is saying the story is a liberal invention showing a deep fear of Thompson.
“And, to be sure, Thompson has made two separate careers out of looking and sounding credible.”
Of course, in his “Wiseguy” arc, Thompson convincingly played a credible white supremacist.
Don’t think we want someone running for President that cannot seem to remember. I do not believe this woman has an agenda and I am a Republican. Thompson people are turning into pretzels defending him.
Looks like Fred is the White candidate from all accounts with Rove’s protege, Tim Griffin, working for the campaign — take a look — Mary Matlin, Cheney’s daughter, both Bakers – Howard and James — same old crowd together.
Time to clean house — no more Bush or their candidates or Clintons.
The NY Times adds this:
And I’d like to emphasize that the two campaign questionnaires I referred to above were two years apart, in 1994 and 1996.
Fred seems prone to a lot of accidental pro-choice opinions.
Shocker: Frederick Dalton Thompson (R) Accepted Salary To Oppose Anti-Abortion Groups
Due to the fact the anti Roe V. Wade crowd likes to label abortion under ANY circumstance, and during ANY term as murder, and since the MSM likes to refer to serial killers by their full names including their middle names (n…
Someone please explain to me why Fred Thompson’s personal views on abortion means a buffalo fart on his ability to be a great President!?
According to the Constitution the President isn’t supposed to make domestic policy, his job is foreign affairs. Therefore, it’s Congress’ job to screw us up and they’re doing very nicely because we keep career politicians re-elected out of a sense of “what’s in it for me” attitude.
Lets wake up, smell what’s going on and get involved…AND from what I’ve seen, which has been quite a bit, Fred is by far the best possible choice out of the whole bunch of bananas.
On abortion; keep your nose in your own business as everyone has more than they can deal with all by itself and women using it as a form of contraception should be institutionalized….That’s reality.
It is not his personal views, it is his willingness to pander to pressure groups. If he has trouble resisting the demands of a small but well organized group of people (assuming arguendo that the anti abortion point is driven by a small group of people intent on radicalizing the question), I don’t think he would make a good president. that’s the reality I see at least.
It is not his personal views, it is his willingness to pander to pressure groups.
Or his unwillingness to say, “I changed my mind.”
I’d be bothered less if he said, “Thanks to the persuasive arguments of the anti-choice faction, I’ve changed my mind.” Right now he’s trying to pander to those people without seeming like he’s pandering. And to me, that’s just insulting my intelligence.
I would not make much out of the questionnaire issue. How long is that and how many questions are on it? I would probably not remember the exact content of a questionnaire I filled out more than a decade ago (except for some really strange things like having to answer, whether I ever was prosecuted for Nazi crimes committed between 1933 and 1945 (being born in 1973)).
Personally I consider the whole bunch of current GOP candidates unelectable but I am not a US citizen.
Hartmut, what you probably aren’t getting is that in the USA people care deeply about this issue. It isn’t the sort of thing that an informed citizen would answer and then forget what they said.
I’m trying to think of a question that might be like that for you but I don’t know you. How about a questionnaire where one of the questions is
“Is it OK to kill babies?”
If you’re at all paying attention you won’t answer yes to that without a lot of thought. And you really do need to pay attention.
If you go around telling people in public that it’s OK to kill babies, later you probably don’t want to say you just forgot about it like it isn’t the least bit important. You do a lot better to say that you came to your senses and realised the truth and you’ll never ever again say that killing babies is OK.
Here’s why this is important. To a fraction of the people that Thompson appeals to, abortion is precisely killing babies. No more and no less. And Thompson may look to them like he really doesn’t care.
They could vote for him anyway if they’re convinced he’d actually do the right thing even though his heart is in the wrong place.
Just like feminists can campaign for a sexist politician who tries to feel them up every time they talk to him, if they’re sure he’ll vote the right way on their issues. But….
J. Thomas- Except none of them actually believe that abortion means killing babies. They say it all the time, but none of them are willing to consider treating abortion as murder and lock the women up.
According to the Constitution the President isn’t supposed to make domestic policy, his job is foreign affairs.
Cite, please.
Frank: Except none of them actually believe that abortion means killing babies. They say it all the time, but none of them are willing to consider treating abortion as murder and lock the women up.
And none of them are willing to consider that if they want to be at all convincing about detesting abortion, especially late abortions, they shouldn’t be focussing their energies so systematically on increasing the number of abortions needed, ensuring women have few or no options other than abortion, and and encouraging policies that increase the number of late abortions.
It is disturbing in general that Republican politicians feel they need to lie about their pro-choice views in order to get selected for President. The pro-life movement is homegrown terrorism and religious fanaticism: that mainstream politicians actually want to ally themselves with such a movement looks extremely, extremely weird from over here…
As I said, I’m not concerned about his views on abortion. (I mean, I’m pro-choice, why would I be?) I am concerned about his honesty.
Also, what CharleyCarp said.
The legal duty to represent unsavory clients is driven by the norm that everyone has a right to legal representation. Unless there’s some right to a lobbyist, I’m not seeing how legal representation is at all relevant.
Except none of them actually believe that abortion means killing babies. They say it all the time, but none of them are willing to consider treating abortion as murder and lock the women up.
I didn’t say they were rational.
It makes a kind of sense for them to first focus on the MDs who do abortions, and once they can get them scared off or imprisoned, then go after the women themselves.
Similarly, drug warriors focus on people who sell drugs first, and if they could somehow shut that down to a manageable number then they might want to go after mere users.
Of course to reduce abortion it makes sense to make it easier for women to avoid it.
Similarly, to reduce dependence on welfare we might concentrate on increasing the general prosperity and spreading the wealth, so it would be easier for poor people to stop being poor.
And to reduce the insurgency in iraq we might promise we’ll leave soon, and encourage the iraqi government to actually represent insurgents, and promote prosperity in iraq.
Somehow people tend to regard all these as appeasement. There are some advantages to punishing people for doing the wrong thing instead of bribing them to do the right thing. I’ll think of them in a minute.
Anyway, yes, a lot of these people really do regard abortion as murder. And they get frothing-at-the-mouth angry that it’s legal murder and they can’t do much to stop it this year.
And it is a big deal for them to see that Thompson isn’t really one of them.
These two LAT & NYT hit pieces come on the heels of Keith-O’s
“Nixon’s Mole” charge and of course, Joe Skankborough’s idiotic remark
about “working the pole.” Thompson isn’t going to drag his wife and
mother of his daughter into the mosh-pit skanks like Elizabeth Edwards
like to slosh around in.
Mike Rowe should take a stint as a DNC fecal-snuffer nosing through
the garbage heaps of slander and innuendo—beats most of the Dirty Jobs
he’s done on his Discovery show!
Compared to Hill & Billy Jeff, Fred Thompson reeks integrity, and Clinton Inc has a thousand
skeletons buried, in closets, & in plain sight. Can you imagine the
shrieks & twittering if B. Hussein Obama gets a closer look in his
childhood madrasa in Indonesia?
Not to mention Hair-and-Makeup candidate Mr.Elizabeth Edwards.
These two LAT & NYT hit pieces come on the heels of Keith-O’s
“Nixon’s Mole” charge and of course, Joe Skankborough’s idiotic remark
about “working the pole.” Thompson isn’t going to drag his wife and
mother of his daughter into the mosh-pit skanks like Elizabeth Edwards
like to slosh around in.
Mike Rowe should take a stint as a DNC fecal-snuffer nosing through
the garbage heaps of slander and innuendo—beats most of the Dirty Jobs
he’s done on his Discovery show!
Compared to Hill & Billy Jeff, Fred Thompson reeks integrity, and Clinton Inc has a thousand
skeletons buried, in closets, & in plain sight. Can you imagine the
shrieks & twittering if B. Hussein Obama gets a closer look in his
childhood madrasa in Indonesia?
Not to mention Hair-and-Makeup candidate Mr.Elizabeth Edwards.
These two LAT & NYT hit pieces come on the heels of Keith-O’s
“Nixon’s Mole” charge and of course, Joe Skankborough’s idiotic remark
about “working the pole.” Thompson isn’t going to drag his wife and
mother of his daughter into the mosh-pit skanks like Elizabeth Edwards
like to slosh around in.
Mike Rowe should take a stint as a DNC fecal-snuffer nosing through
the garbage heaps of slander and innuendo—beats most of the Dirty Jobs
he’s done on his Discovery show!
Compared to Hill & Billy Jeff, Fred Thompson reeks integrity, and Clinton Inc has a thousand
skeletons buried, in closets, & in plain sight. Can you imagine the
shrieks & twittering if B. Hussein Obama gets a closer look in his
childhood madrasa in Indonesia?
Not to mention Hair-and-Makeup candidate Mr.Elizabeth Edwards.
yum. pie.
Who knew Fred Thompson had so many sharp-tongued supporters?
yum. pie.
mmmmm. pi.
Speaking of Fred, Nixon on him: “Not very smart.”
Hilzoy: “As I said, I’m not concerned about his views on abortion. (I mean, I’m pro-choice, why would I be?)”
I don’t see how the second point follows: most pro-choice Americans care about abortion — it’s what makes us pro-choice. Therefore most of us care whether a Presidential candidate advocates making abortion illegal.
I’m entirely sure you’re entirely aware of this, which is why I don’t understand your point at all. Are you really “not concerned about” Presidential candidates’ “views on abortion,” or did something come out wrong in your phrasing there, or what?
Gary: sorry, it was shorthand for: the revelation that he, personally, either is pro-choice or was in the past, rather than having been consistently anti, does not worry (= concern) me; being pro-choice myself, I find the idea that others agree with me a source of contentment, not concern.
Or: it was concern=worry, not concern=interest, and ‘the fact that he is or was pro-choice’, not ‘his views on abortion, whatever they may be.’
Thanks, Hilzoy; I figured it was something like that.
Rereading the post, and thinking it over some, I can come up with an “but on the fourth hand…”
That being: it’s a dumb thing to lie about. It’s not he said-she said, DeSarno v. Sununu. There are records, meeting minutes and invoices. If someone wants to dig deep enough, there might be correspondence from Thompson; maybe even opinion letters.
Thompson could just as easily have pulled a Romney and said he used to be pro-choice but isn’t anymore. That is at least plausible. But to deny that he worked for them at all, when there’s independence evidence that he did so, is just ridiculous.
The GOP base is so desperate for a Man on the White Horse they’ll believe him.
But to anyone else, he sounds like he’s the world’s dumbest liar; or that he panics at the small stuff – and this is the best he can come up with to explain it; or that he’s an in-your-face liar right up there with the Bushies…
Ah hah. That must be it. He’s proving himself worthy of the Bushist mantle, not only by telling an obvious lie, but also by brazening it out.
OK: mystery solved.
Hartmut, what you probably aren’t getting is that in the USA people care deeply about this issue. It isn’t the sort of thing that an informed citizen would answer and then forget what they said.
I thought it was the question, whether he had filled out a questionnaire including that question not necessarily about what choice was taken. If I was informed that I had filled out one a decade ago and that there was a certain question on it, I would likely “know” what answer I gave, even if it turned out that there actually was no q. to begin with or somebody filled it out for me.
So, in that case a “I can’t recall” would not sound dishonest by itself. Not enough at least to build anything on it.
Hartmut, I see! If the question is, “Do you recall a 10-year-old questionnaire”, then of course the answer is likely no.
On the other hand, if the question is “Ten years ago, did you publicly claim that Hitler was correct in every detail”, then it’s more likely you’d remember whether you made that claim or not.
That isn’t really a good comparison, though. A majority or near-majority of americans think abortion should be legal, while I’m guessing a much smaller fraction of germans would make this other claim. But it’s an issue that many people feel strongly about, and not one that many politicians would make a firm stand on without noticing what they were doing.
That being: it’s a dumb thing to lie about. It’s not he said-she said, DeSarno v. Sununu. There are records, meeting minutes and invoices. If someone wants to dig deep enough, there might be correspondence from Thompson; maybe even opinion letters.
So why not produce the billing records?
Captain Ed raises a question about when Thompson actually started with Arent Fox based on registration with the Foreign Agent Registration Unit at the Department of Justice. Note he doesn’t claim it to be conclusive, just that it raises a question.
Question for the lawyers: Would a firm such as Arent Fox keep billing records for 16 years?
I agree with you, it is a dumb thing to lie about. It should be pretty easy to prove or disprove. Arent Fox has no obligation to produce those records, but I imagine they would at Thompson’s request. Hopefully he has made the request.
Of course that is not nearly as important as the answer to this burning question:
Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is spurring debate in Internet chat rooms, on cable television and on talk radio: Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?
Cutting edge political analysis brought to you by the NYT “Fashion and Style” section.
Question for the lawyers: Would a firm such as Arent Fox keep billing records for 16 years?
I wouldn’t rule it out.
OCSteve: I swear to God, you’d think there weren’t any important issues, the way this campaign is being covered.
I propose a bipartisan alliance: Democrats swear not to care about Thompson’s wife, etc., if Republicans swear not to care about Edwards’ haircut, etc. We will repeat: people can marry whomever they please, and it’s insulting to make assumptions about “trophy wives” in any case. You will repeat: people running for President are in a hurry, and probably don’t make haircut decisions to start with. Plus, it costs money to get a haircut person to come to you.
And we will all be immunized against this idiocy.
Hilzoy: Deal.
Mike Finnegan will lose his job because of this article. Not because of what he wrote, but his editing job after the original appeared.
A media type losing their job because of retroactive edits? How charmingly naive.
Wings Over The World Tour
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