Fred Thompson wasn’t always supportive of Ronald Reagan

DETROIT (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is criticizing rival Fred Thompson, saying he wasn’t always supportive of Ronald Reagan.

Thompson had questioned Huckabee’s commitment to the Reagan Revolution during yesterday’s debate, calling his opponent a liberal on economic issues and foreign policies.

Huckabee said during a news conference today in Detroit that Thompson had supported Gerald Ford in 1976 and Howard Baker in 1980, not Reagan.

McCain-Feingold (Thompson)

Fred Thompson. Just mention the name, and A-list bloggers go ga-ga. Commenters on Free Republic start shouting Hosannas for the new reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. The fever-pitch love affair for Fred Thompson daily expresses itself in orgasmic praise for the lawyer-actor-lobbyist-Senator-actor from Tennessee, and woe unto anyone who refuses to bow at the altar of Fred D. Thompson. You’re either for Fred Thompson or you’re a RINO, or in Fred Thompson’s words, you’re a part of “the blame America First crowd.”

Why? I truly do not get it. His record of accomplishment?

Thompson’s senatorial career was largely uneventful. Don’t take my word for it, search the internet for Fred Thompson accomplishments. It’s a thin record. Very thin. The only bill of any consequence that I can find is McCain-Feingold, or as it was originally called, McCain-Feingold-Thompson.

There was no more adamant supporter of campaign finance reform and the regulation of political speech and issue ads that Senator Thompson. His support was not reluctant; it was enthusiastic and repeated. He actively and enthusiastically supported regulation of and, ultimately, total prohibition of corporate and labor union issue ads, which he never viewed as a “mistake.” The issue ad prohibition was not added by others, as he claimed, but was an essential feature of the campaign finance proposals he co-sponsored, voted for, and diverted his own Senate committee’s investigation to justify. In short, Senator Thompson devoted much energy in the Senate to gutting the First Amendment.

There is no doubt but those of us who have fought McCain-Feingold-Thompson for decades would welcome Senator Thompson’s sincere conversion to our cause. But denial and revisionist history is not a conversion, only a deception. And there is nothing “plain-speaking” about disassembling one’s documented record in the Senate. Nor is Senate-career-long support for McCain-Feingold-Thompson the hallmark of a “consistent conservative.” source

So, tell me Fred-heads. This is your guy?

Why?

NNV