The Wa-Po has another hit piece on Fred

From The Washington Post:

Before he was elected as a tough-on-crime U.S. senator from Tennessee or played a New York prosecutor on TV's "Law and Order," Fred Dalton Thompson worked as a lawyer who argued against the government's authority to regulate drug paraphernalia or to search a boat packed with 14 tons of marijuana.

Once, two decades ago, he urged that more witnesses refuse to testify before grand juries by invoking their constitutional right against self-incrimination, boasting that "I start on the assumption that my client will not testify." And over the years, lawsuits he filed helped a state worker win reinstatement to her job while exposing a parole bribery scheme and won money for the family of a Marine pilot killed by a helicopter blade when the family could not sue the Defense Department.

Thompson's work as a lawyer from the late 1970s to the early 1990s is one of the least explored aspects of a career that has taken the Tennessean with the imposing frame and deep voice from early fame as a Watergate lawyer to a Senate career, Hollywood stardom and now the brink of a campaign for president.

Before I say anything else let me say that I support 100% the repeal of each and every law against "drug paraphernalia". I conduct criminal background investigations on job applicants every week and I see people who have been sentenced to 11 months and 29 days in jail (the maximum sentence for a misdemeanor in TN) for having a pack of rolling papers without a tin of tobacco alongside them (to "prove" they weren't for marijuana).

That is just flat fraking ridiculous.

Now, on to Thompson. The Left is going to have to do better than this.

While working as a lawyer he defended clients in both criminal and civil cases. He also brought down the corrupt Democrat governor of Tennessee. That, BTY, is what began his acting career. He played himself in the movie that was made about the whole affair.

Thompson was a lawyer and he represented his clients to the best of his ability. That is what good lawyers do. To allow his own political or moral beliefs to cause him to do less than his best for a client would be a violation of the cannons of legal ethics which could result in his disbarment. If you doubt that there really are cannons of legal ethics just ask Mike Nifong.

I challenge anyone to find a single client which Thompson represented as either a lawyer or a lobbyist who was not legally entitled to representation under the constitution.

The choice in the Republican primary is going to be between Giuliani and Thompson. The choice is not going to be between one of the men currently in the race and some mythical perfect candidate that exists only in your own mind. I would much prefer it if Thompson was 100% on board with tort reform but given the choice between his squishiness on that issue and Giuliani's enthusiastic support for abortion (including partial-birth abortion) and gun control and amnesty for illegal aliens I'll take Thompson.