More Fred Thompson stuff

I caught Fred Thompson on Sean Hannity's radio show on my way home this afternoon. He sounded good, very good. The Republican Party need him, or someone like him (and there isn't anyone else out there "like him" that I can think of), however he did say one thing to prove that he is a politician at heart.

When asked about his views on abortion he is pro-life and thinks that Roe v Wade was bad law, but (and here is where the politician part comes in) he then dropped an enormous straw man into the argument. He said that he would oppose a constitutional amendment to outlaw all abortions in every circumstance.

As I said a giant straw man, which started dancing and singing "If I Only Had A Brain" while he went on to explain how he believed that the issue should be returned to the states. Two things come to mind. One is that the number of people who would ban every single abortion, even those to save the life of the mother on a fetus which is so massively deformed that it cannot possibly live outside of the womb, is so small that you need a microscope to find them.

The other thing that I thought of was to wonder if Thompson would back a similar states' rights position on slavery or wife beating or the use of torture to obtain confessions in criminal cases. After all if you don't believe that an unborn baby is a human being with human rights then opposing abortion makes as much sense as opposing rhinoplasty.

As I said Thompson is a politician at heart, but then so was Reagan - otherwise he couldn't have gotten elected.

The most disturbing thing Thompson said was that he would watch how things develop over the "next several months". He does not have "several months" to make up his mind. The race is being decided now. Whoever is ahead at the end of August will enter next year's heavily front loaded primaries with an insurmountable advantage.

If Fred wants to be taken seriously as a candidate he needs to declare before the end of April. Otherwise he becomes Mario Cuomo II, the guy who would have been president if he hadn't dicked around too long.