There’s fresh word today that Fred Thompson will announce in July that he is getting in the GOP presidential race. Coincidentally, here’s a bullet point on his resume that was news to me:
Over about two decades of lobbying (during which he also acted and practiced law), Thompson made nearly $1.3 million and represented clients including a British reinsurance company facing billions of dollars in asbestos claims, Canadian-owned cable companies, and deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to government documents and media accounts from his first run for the Senate in 1994…’There’s nothing wrong with lobbying. It’s an honorable profession,’ Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo said…A year after stepping down [from the Senate in January 2003], he registered to lobby for British reinsurance company Equitas Ltd. The company paid him $760,000 to guard its interests against several bills seeking to protect businesses from asbestos lawsuits.
And:
Critics point out that Thompson’s aw-shucks, shit-kicker populism is more than a little bit phony. That he spent 18 years as a registered Washington lobbyist, doing the bidding of such high-powered clients as General Electric and Westinghouse, pushing for the passage of the deregulatory legislation that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s.
Conservatives have been hailing Fred as the living incarnation of St. Ronnie, but “Republican lobbyist” has become synonymous with “D.C. call girl,” thanks to Jack Abramoff and his merry band of pranksters and murderers.
Lawdy, lawdy; lawdy, we’s got the “Great White Hype” . . . gonna get my green prayer cloth out, dab some of Rev Ikes whole-lee water on it an pray with Rev Haggard to dee liver us from the evils . . . and pleeze don’t cancel “Kerr-Chung” while he’s a runnin’ . . .
Dead Fred isn’t an honest public figure, but he plays one on TV . . .
I am very curious about his term as a US Senator. In the three-day flurry of newswanking over Thompson, I saw one passing mention of his association with the S&L scandal that cost us taxpayers a half-a-trillion. I remember that a number of congressmen pushed successfully for laws in the early ’80s that enabled S&L sharpies to loot their S&Ls, leaving the Treasury Dept. holding the bag. My question: was Thompson one of the ones that arranged for the looting?
If you like Thompson, you would love a third term from dubya.
Just imagine, you could eliminate the learning curve - hit the ground running and what not.
This is definitely a liberal bent website.