I, like some others around here, was a member of Fred Thompson's legal policy team before he dropped out of the Presidential race. Here's an interview between Sen. Thompson and Sean Hannity.
To me, perhaps the most interesting comment is Fred's rejection of the idea that he would like to be VP. His rationale is intriguing--running for such an office is such an awful experience that the only position worth going through that sort of unpleasantness is to be President. Being VP--"flying off to attend state funerals" is how he says it--just isn't worth it to go through the process. The effort is worth it only if you actually get to do something. He suggests that such a position may be worthwhile for someone with more ambition than he has.
I also like his frank observation that most of the things that Presidential elections are about are things that the President can't do anything about anyway.
As an admitted Fred fan, the interview reminds me of why I liked him in the first place. And why he simply may have been too normal of a person to be President--or VP either, apparently.
Explain. Don't you mean the opposite?
It's another thing to be lazy. Unlike all of the Fredheads at the VC, I've never met the man, but comments like these don't do much to reject the notion that he's just lazy.
This isn't TBS, Fred. There are no script writers. You actually have to do some work and put in some time to be president. Whether or not the issues debated on the presidential campaign trail are "things that the President can't do anything about anyway," you still have to campaign. Full time.
Thompson moaning about "ambition" is really unbecoming at this point. If the VP is for someone more ambitions than he, what does that say about his POTUS bid?
I disagree. Gerald Ford was a normal person. Normal people in this country know that when they want to do something they have to work hard to achieve their goals.
Sometimes I think that Thompson thought he literally just had to put his name out and Republicans would hand him the nomination without question. Hillary Clinton's attitude-- that she deserves the nomination-- is somewhat similar, and many Americans find this attitude irritating if not disgusting.
No apologies necessary. If I had used the word "age" instead of "life" there would have been no misunderstanding. I should go back to bed to find out who the stranger in my bed is and nurse my hangover.
I disagree. Gerald Ford was a normal person. Normal people in this country know that when they want to do something they have to work hard to achieve their goals.
A pretty good comparison, since Ford didn't win his election either, but probably would have had he been as ambitious, driven and ruthless as the president (Nixon) he replaced.
I was never a Thompson supporter, but I always liked the guy and much of the reason why I did was comments like "most of the things that Presidential elections are about are things that the President can't do anything about anyway."
it says a lot about his lack of interest in anything presidential when he displays such ignorance.
could you break this down into monosyllabics so even us gun@God clingers can participate?
Thank you, Doctor...
be sure and get his name.
Sounds like it to me. As much as Americans claim to detest politicians, the problem remains that only politicians want to run for president. With the traditional exception for ex-generals who can be swept to power on public acclaim and not have to "run" for anything.
George W. Bush is a normal person.
Back on topic, the Vice Presidency is what the President is willing to make of it. Dick Cheney is powerful because George W. Bush lets him be powerful. He could show up at work tomorrow and find that his personal belongings have been shipped to the OEOB and his White House pass has been revoked.
From a practical standpoint, McCain-Thompson doesn't do anything--other than have the ticket with the highest combined age in American history. I can see Thompson as AG in a McCain Administration, but he was right to squelch any speculation about Thompson as VP.
Gerald Ford was actually President for 2 1/2 years (August 1974 to January 1977). What evidence from his tenure as President can you point at to support your contention?
Cornellian misinterpreted me, I think. I was meaning to suggest that Ford was unlike Thompson in that Ford was a "normal" person who knew that hard work builds the path to success. It is true that Ford was not elected to either of his White House posts but I've always believed that it was his work and efforts that put him in the position to ascend the executive ranks. This is what distinguishes Ford (and "normal" Americans who believe that effort is required to achieve significant and worthwhile goals) from Thompson.
(As to Ford's failed re-election campaign, I think that much of his defeat was due to two key factors, neither of which have anything to do with Ford's own hard work: 1) Reagan's early intervention, and 2) the Nixon pardon in the short-sighted eyes of the media/electorate.)
This wasn't Fred's loss, it's clearly ours.
How do blind people type so well??
I would have liked to vote for Thompson for president but we need a younger running mate. Thompson is just too old to be VP to an older president.
Yes. McCain can not raise his arms above his shoulders because of the injuries he sustained.
McCain can't move his arms above his shoulders due to having his arms broken while being tortured by North Koreans.
If I didn't see all this drivel one would think it was raining.
When you can't raise your arms past your shoulders, when your jaw was so badly broken and whatever else those communist bastards did, it doesn't mean his life expectency has been shortened, it just means you get a full medical retirement.
If you need to understand real subversion in running for office in knowingly putting our national security at risk look at JFK. Had he not been assassinated he would have died from being ill and we could even see it in his eyes.
Of course, one must be actually observant rather than just throwing manure against a running fan.
Incredible! What is in our water that creates such deafness and blindness???
What did the man say Jerry Lewis??
He was born August 29, 1936. He is 71.
The North Vietnamese employed North Korean torturers? Really?
It doesn't always follow, but most of the people willing to endure the rigors of a modern campaign should never be permitted to hold high office. There have been exceptions, but it is a good indicator...IMHO.
If the only effect of his war time injuries is can't raise raise his arms above his shoulders, then I don't see how he qualifies as being disabled on a permanent basis. Surely his condition goes far beyond something like adhesive capsulitis, which is serious enough if left untreated. I don't see how we can conclude his life has not been shortened.
If the injury is permanent, you get permanent disability. So, since he still can't raise his shoulders above his head, he continues to get disability. I am not familiar with McCain's full medical record, but yes, if the "only" effect of his wartime injuries is that he can't raise his arms above his shoulders, he is entitled to permanent disability. His physical health is an issue, but this assertion that he is on disability is proof of physical frailty is ignorant, absent further information.
Oh really?? Did you think his range of motion would return someday? Did you think his face would become symmetrical again so that he could chew or even talk correctly?
Or are you merely suggesting that he wasn't actually fighting at the time he was injured in the crash and was tortured for 5 and a half years?
Yeah, you must be right, those aren't actually permanent injuries he sustained for his country and on top of that your wild guess at his prognosis is much more accurate than the medical tests all presidential candidates must take.
No folks, this country has completely lost any capability for it's own governance if it ever had it.
Then stop eating.
It's another thing to be lazy. Unlike all of the Fredheads at the VC, I've never met the man, but comments like these don't do much to reject the notion that he's just lazy. "
That's precisely what went through my mind. But don't tell the other Conspirators: I don't want to get banned.
Good grief. They were North Viet Namese. I hope that was an innocent slip because I'd hate to think that a UVA lawyer would have such bad geography.
Fred Thompson, like many other "normal" Americans would have made a good president. Personally, I'd love to have a lazy president and I wish all politicians were lazy. The growth of federal power has only encouraged politicians to be energetic and that's a bad thing.
But the truth is that the job requirement isn't to be someone who would make a good president. To be president requires that you convince a lot of people that you should be president and that takes more effort than Fred was willing to provide.
Personally, I'm gravely disappointed that he failed to do more. We've got people in danger, getting killed and maimed to fight this war, in danger 24 hours a day, and he just doesn't feel like trying too hard to chat with people.
He had a responsibility to this nation and he failed to live up to it. My esteem of him is much diminished.
Oh yeah, "normal" people are grandsons of senators and sons of presidents and attend the best prep schools and are one of several dozen legacies at Yale and never have a real job until they are well over forty.
The stupid and lazy could be ignored - they were not a threat. The stupid and hardworking you made supply officers, or otherwise got rid of them - they would make people do pointless things.
The clever and hardworking made great staff officers.
The clever and lazy made great Generals.
Fred is clever and lazy...the democratic candidates are certainly hardworking (it's not easy running for President), their intelligence I'll leave for each to decide for themselves.
McCain is clever and hardworking - he'd have made a tolerably adequate CNO had he remained on active duty. He verges on hardworking and stupid, in his idiotic policies.
All in all, I'd rather have Fred for President than any of the other choices we've had. I don't want a hardworking, clever president - the Nation is still trying to recover from Carter. Clever and hardworking (and dishonest as the day is long)? Nixon, and Clinton. No, thanks.
Exactly the point! You haven't the foggiest idea of what you're talking about yet, had you ASKED instead of intentionally making a blanket aspersion by implying that the only and single valid subject McCain wrongfully gained his support as a candidate from was now somehow invalid is more than outrageous to witness.
We owe him our total respect and support for his service and nightmare as a prisoner but, it does not in anyway qualify him to be a senator, let alone, a president.
AND FY SMOKE!
"Fred is clever and lazy"
The mere appearance of an easy going style when it is completely backed up with the real solutions for our real problems which he provided twice over and above any other candidate running or now in office who could laughably be referred to as a "hard working" candidate couldn't sanely be referred to as "lazy".
Getting someone else to do all your work for you and passing it off as your own is actually the definition of "Clever and Lazy". I think it describes Fred to a tee.
General Eric von Manstein of the Prussian military catagorized officers as falling into a matrix of clever and hardworking, clever and lazy, stupid and hardworking, and stupid and lazy.
No wonder the Germans suffered so many crushing defeats if they held their supply officers in such disdain.
Ah, but the flip side is that the time-frame for a VP campaign is much shorter.
Assuming that Barack Obama gets the Democratic nomination, then by Election Day he will have been a declared presidential candidate for about a week shy of twenty-one months. John McCain will have been a declared candidate for eighteen months plus a week or two. That's a long time to participate in the grueling, debasing business of running for an office. And that doesn't count the unofficial campaigning that goes on before the candidate declares.
The vice-presidential candidates--assuming that they're named in early July--will each campaign for about four months. Four months can feel like a long time, but it's about one-fourth to one-fifth of the campaign time put in by the person at the top of the ticket.
Given the power that a VP can potentially wield (as others in this thread have noted), it seems that a VP slot potentially offers a better return on investment than the top of the ticket offers (assuming that campaign time is the "investment," and power and influence are the return).
Winghunter: Fred has the right answers - and the right way of implementing them. First and foremost he understands that the first, strongest and most visceral response of a politician (even the President) is to DO SOMETHING, even without knowing what needs to be done. McCain and the two democrats clearly have that genetic malformation.
I feel fairly certain the rules must have changed but when I was involved any illness or disability that occurred while on active duty was compensable. Depending on severity the percent of disability changed. I know that years ago, Tinea Pedis, athletes foot, was considered a disability and may have produced a 10% disability.
What happened to Senator McCain would be 100% lifetime disability. Much, much more minor problems would be similarly compensated.
Fortunately for us you don't "think" often.
Who else didn't run for the office out of personal ambition?
Who else correctly stood on the platform of Federalism, stopping judicial activism, personal responsibility, individual liberty, free markets with better trade policy, limited government, the rule of law and traditional American principles and values before he did?
What other candidate wrote the book on government waste and how to stop it where he's the only one that can be believed to successfully shrink it down when he says he will?
What other candidate before him blogged and broadcasted our fundamental ideals on every important subject of the day? ( Now two of the con artist candidates follow in his footsteps to ingratiate themselves upon us merely because Fred had done it. )
Who else offered the optional Flat tax plan?
Who else offered a real illegal immigration plan designed on enforcement of our borders, our laws and then correctly on attrition?
Who else offered a Social Security solution that would actually work as designed without hurting recipients or tax payers?
Who else offered a healthcare reform plan by not raising our taxes or mandating we participate in a one-size fits all scam of socialism?
OR did you risibly think that completely re-inventing the conservative wheel in what we already know works for anything else is preferable?? To 'think' that way describes idiocy to a 'T'.
"First and foremost he understands that the first, strongest and most visceral response of a politician (even the President) is to DO SOMETHING, even without knowing what needs to be done."
I sincerely believe from what I know about him is that he would do something with the right plan on every single subject. There is no subject that hadn't crossed his desk at one time or another and he often went way out of his way to know what the problem actually was where others merely knee-jerked a band-aid solution for a symptom instead of treating the cause.
"McCain and the two democrats clearly have that genetic malformation."
Exaclty right Doc, as well as every other candidate who ran within their own dysfunction...Fred was the only president in the entire bunch.
That's the price they pay for having to re-invent themselves from their own past and records.
The best part of that interview is that his intelligence and honest message rings true every single time he speaks;
"I thought I had an opportunity to do some things in a different way and if I was successful I could lead in a different way but, that didn't work out. I am interested in absolutely nothing else other than doing what I can to help those who are trying to help this country, and be a good citizen and do those things that I can do now in the private sector to help these kids and grandchildren but that does not involve going to state funerals in faraway places. "
We lost an honest to God president in this election and someone who runs out of other than personal ambition for the toughest job on the planet happens less than once in a lifetime, much less. Wake up and get a clue people.
“The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How is the president?"”
Sorry, I confused this with the FLDS and Bernardine Dohrn threads.
Military disability is actually compensation for one's sacrifice, even if you can work just fine. There is also unemployability disability but that's not required to receive compensation. Different disabilities have different percents, the higher the more compensation. ALL disability pensions are tax exempt. Let's say you're deaf in one ear due to an injury sustained while in the military, even if you can and do work, you will receive disability compensation.
The British comedy series "Yes, Minister" called this "The Politician's Syllogism."
1. I must do something about this problem
2. Proposal X is something
3. Therefore I must do it
You're either one of the writers for the media that would sink to scum-low to say anything about anyone or you're a pedophile looking for absolution but, I wouldn't pretend to know which one...just crawl back under the rock you came from.
Glad you picked up on the satire.
But thanks for making my point.
Please elucidate.
Fred Thompson apologizes for sexual predators and isn't fit to be vice-president.
???
???
The "point" is on your head as any idiot who attempts satire in text without qualifying it up front at the bottom of a long list of other clowns running their mouths is begging to get flamed...and you got exactly what you were looking for. Congrats!
Darwin's Nominee applications are also available for next year if you think about what you're doing real hard.
This coming from someone who titles their blog "Barack Hussein Obama." Give me break.
"Too normal of a person to be President" may be one of the most condescending pieces of tripe ever written on this site. Too "law professor" of a person to be President, maybe. The normal fifty year old dude I saw busting his ass cleaning floors for minimum wage tonight appeared to have the work ethic of, to say the very least, a GWB.
If Fred Thompson was an accurate representation of the work ethic of the "normal" American this country would quite literally fall apart in days.
Huh? I'm pretty sure that was a documentary series.
If Thompson had stayed in the race, his opponents likely would be saying something very much like this right about now. I don't blame him for not wanting to engage in eighteen months of campaigning.
I liked Arthur C. Clarke's idea in Imperial Earth ... By the year 2276, the U.S. President was chosen by lottery from the pool of qualified citizens. One of the qualifications was that you be sane enough to not want the job.
The irony of someone who thought my comment had anything to do with Fred Thomson bringing up "Darwin's Nominee" [sic] speaks for itself.
Actually it describes the ideal Executive, or President. Hire people to do the job you can't and let them do it. When well done, the Presidency is a part time job, because a good President is a figurehead for those he's hired.
I won't get chosen in either system then.
Come on--Fred is a fat slob who likes a good life and likes people to listen to him. He has no heart or conviction to be in politics. Aside from his passably mediocre acting, his only claim to fame is his connection to Nixon. He is a one-line joke.
I am sure Fred can appeal on a personal level and to conservative lawyers he sounds like a good alternative, given the rest of the Republican field this year. But if there was one knock on his candidacy before he entered it was his reputation for being lazy. He's done nothing to disprove that label--in fact, he earned it.
Put it to rest, Todd. There is nothing fascinating about Fred Thompson.
MY comment on your application for Darwin's Nominee's had NOTHING to do with YOUR comment genius! BUT, you now WIN the nomination.
WHERE would you prefer it?
This is what happens with shellheads who don't read the thread...totally incapable of their own governance.
"His policy statements were incoherent, his speeches were incomprehensible"
This could be true for anyone who didn't speak english or had the attention span of a 4 year old and also had no idea what the issues he was instructing us on were about.
You are also totally incapable of your own governance.
I blame William Jennings Bryan for this world view. Before Bryan, it was considered inappropriate for a Presidential candidate to campaign for oneself. Bryan barnstormed around the country via train. I'm not sure why we are better off now that canidates give the same speech 5 times per day to the hoi polloi, and then give quite another talk several times per week to the plutocracy in private, like Obama in San Francisco.
100% of the torture for 2/3 the price, I guess.
I fully agree that our political campaigns are way, way out of control. But when did Mr. Thompson learn what was involved in running for the office? Surely he had enough experience in Washington over the years, including his time campaigning and serving in the Senate, to be as well-informed as the 5 or more other senators, congressmen, and governors about what it entailed. Why the half-hearted feint that he made?
I apologize for hijacking the thread. It wasn't my intention, but that's no excuse. Lesson learned.
Hahaha. Colmes is the sprig of parsley on Hannity's mendacious lard sandwich. He's deliberately programmed by Fox to provide a weak strawman, though well paid for his "balance" of Hannity. I actually hope that most conservatives would have a problem with one of their own interviewing with Hannity, given the man's boorishness and laughable failure to even attempt honesty or consistency. And yes, Rhodes is atrocious also.
Ah. But if I really did not want the job, wouldn't I campaign for it under that system? The standard set clears out the people for whom it was set, no?
Putting it another way, is there anybody on earth who's been awake for the last 2 terms who thinks that all the current Veep does is attend ribbon-cuttings and state funerals? One of the biggest reasons why I can't stomach the thought of another Republican administration is the fact that I wouldn't expect the Office of the Vice-President to be diminished at all in one, despite the fact that it has grown well beyond both its intended purpose and its capacity for effective service.
Time was, a Veep might take the lead on one or two issues in addition to the functionary crap, but now the office has, like most of the rest of the Executive Branch, bloated uncontrollably and transformed into a many-tentacled beast. If there were to be a McCain-Thompson administration, I seriously doubt Fred would be stuck saying "hi" to visiting NCAA teams during the workday.
1) We'd no longer have to worrying about the agenda or opinion of "running mates".
2) Prognostications about how many votes a "running mate" will garner a party's candidate can be thrown out.
3) Comedians who base their careers by inferring faux pas of the Vice President on the character of the President will have something else to think about.
4) Considering the tie breaker vote the VP gets in the Senate, some candidates may run to lose!