Newsweek has gone hunting through Fred Thompson’s eight years worth of Senate records that are stashed in a public archive at the University of Tennessee, and they’ve come to the conclusion that Thompson is not quite as conservative as his admirers on the right believe. Abortion is a big problem:
On a 1994 Eagle Forum survey, Thompson said he opposed criminalizing abortion. Two years later, on a Christian Coalition questionnaire, he checked “opposed” to a proposed constitutional amendment protecting the sanctity of human life. He struggled with the question of when life begins. “I do believe that the decision to have an early term abortion is a moral issue and should not be a legal one subject to the dictates of the government,” he wrote…
[Thompson told the Conservative Spectator], “I’m not willing to support laws that prohibit early term abortions … It comes down to whether life begins at conception. I don’t know in my own mind if that is the case so I don’t feel the law ought to impose that standard on other people.”
Thompson told a different paper, “The ultimate decision on abortion should be left with the woman and not the government.” But Big Fred likely won’t have to make like Romney and disavow his previous stance. For all his ambivalence, Thompson maintained a straight pro-life voting record in the Senate. No matter what his personal beliefs, it seems he always knew what was good for him politically.
But what about campaign finance? The McCain-Feingold bill that irritated a number of conservatives and has badly hurt John McCain’s fundraising was supported strongly by Thompson. In fact, he helped write the bill.
My response: eh. Thompson will have to flip-flop on that one. It’s not like flip-flops are hurting anyone this campaign season — king of the flip-flops, Mitt Romney, is in the lead. The more damaging claim against Thompson might be that he’s too lazy to campaign for president, or serve as one. That’s been getting a lot of traction. I mean a lot. Really, like, a ton.
Update: The Thompson-is-lazy links keep on coming. Here’s one more. And another. This guy must really not like to work hard.
