See previous: 2007.05.04 Decision '08 Roundup ...

Below the fold, newest items at the top:

• Fred Thompson — ‘I’ve never casually run for anything’
• Some remarks I left on the Power Line forum
• A Second Helping of Fred
• Fred's Debut

Some Thoughts On Fred!'s Lincoln Club Speech

I'm not sure if C-Span had problems at the last or if I did something wrong but I managed to watch almost all of Fred Thompson's speech at The Lincoln Club. He kinda sorta followed the prepared remarks posted here but they don't begin to do justice to his podium persona. He's not quite Reagan's equal as a communicator but he's the closest I've seen in a lot of years and he said all the right things.

btw, I just bookmarked The Fred Thompson Report on ABC's web site and spent some time in the archives. How about if you do the same?

Fred! '08! Fred! '08! Fred! '08!

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Via Real Clear Politics, watch some short excerpts from Sen. Thompson's speech at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae7EfXqNO4Q. *** *** Update: Watch the whole speech here (Hat tip: bnelson44 in this PL Forum thread) It's just over a half hour long so you might still want to watch the excerpt if you're pressed for time.

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Better yet, watch that clip here then go watch Fred Thompson on Hannity & Colmes Part I and Fred Thompson on Hannity & Colmes Part II

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Fred Thompson — ‘I’ve never casually run for anything’

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I posted this on this Power Line Forum thread but since it's alreay typed up I might as well post it here to. (The whole thread's well worth your time.)

(With a salute to IronDioPriest for kinda/sorta bringing this up earlier.)

Second, the last five years have been a critical time in our nation’s history. From 2002 to the present, men like George Bush, John McCain, and many others have been fighting a very difficult battle on behalf of our country. Not Fred Thompson: he preferred to leave the Senate to live the very sweet life of a minor television celebrity. There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily, but it’s not exactly heroic, either.

John, go reread A Second Helping of Fred, which Scott linked to from The Fred factor, part 3. Sen. Thompson didn’t feel particularly needed in 2000.

Thompson says before 9/11 he thought the United States was in “an era of caretaker presidents"-that the American people did not want to talk about some of the more difficult issues. Although Thompson credits Bush for campaigning on Social Security reform, such bold policy proposals were the exceptions after eight years of Bill Clinton. “George Bush comes along and talks about compassionate conservatism, it seemed like a perfect thing that fit the times and I’m sure his advisors thought so. And that’s not worth it. I was wrong. September 11 happened. We realized, everybody realized, that the earth had shifted under us. It became in most people’s eyes, a different era, requiring much more of a president. Giving a president much greater opportunities to do things than it ever had before.”

Fred’s said he would have done some things differently in Iraq than George Bush did, but can we really fault him for not competing against a sitting Republican President for the ‘04 nomination? Should he have run for the seat Sen. Frist vacated? (Of course, by your reasoning Frist should have fought to retain his seat himself, I suppose.) Possibly, or possibly he was confident that seat would remain in Republican hands anyway and decided to save himself for bigger things.

As far as this Old Dog’s concerned the winner of Thursday night’s debate was Fred Dalton Thompson. If I could simply wave my magic wand and make it happen I’d appoint Duncan Hunter to the Oval Office with Fred Thompson as his VP but I’m willing to be realistic and vote for a Thompson/Lieberman ticket without being too put out.

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A Second Helping of Fred
We may well just have something here.
by Stephen F. Hayes 

... A couple of weeks ago, I profiled Thompson for THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Although  the piece ran at a meaty 6,000 words, there was much from my interview with Thompson that I wasn't able to include. So consider this a second helping of Fred. ...

Among many other things, we discussed the surge (he's for it, but thinks it was late and should have been bigger); cutting spending (he faults both the Bush administration and congressional Republicans for their failures); the Democrats' attempt to cut funding for the Iraq War ("tragic"); why he chose not to run for president in 2000 (he didn't want to be a "caretaker president"); his reading habits in college (Russel Kirk, Friedrich Hayek, National Review and, to understand the other side, the New Republic,); his frustrations in the Scooter Libby prosecution with the CIA ("they set this whole thing up") and the Justice Department (the case was brought because of "a breakdown" at DOJ); and which longtime Democrat he contributed to in 2006.

The Surge

On January 11, the day after President Bush announced his plans for a troop surge in Iraq, Thompson praised the changes in a commentary for ABC Radio. "I was struck by a couple of things he said that indicated not just a change in tactics but a whole new attitude with regard to what's necessary," Thompson said. "He's taking the gloves off." Thompson, a strong supporter of the Iraq War who voted to authorize it in October 2002, ended with a soft but direct critique: "I'll bet that a lot of folks who support the president on this are asking themselves 'What if we'd taken care of business this way two years ago?'" 

I asked Thompson if he was among that group ("Yep."), whether the surge is the last hope for a victory ("In Iraq? Probably."), and what specifically had led him to offer that criticism of the White House.

"The greatest source of my frustration," he says, "is that in any situation involving military conflict in a democracy, the president has a limited window of opportunity to get the job done, or more precisely, to make progress. That window can be pretty wide if progress is being made. My concern is that we have waited so long that that window is almost closed. And you cannot carry on a war for any length of time at all without the support of the American people." He adds: "If we had done this three years ago, I just think we would have been in much better shape."  ...

Democrats, con and pro

Democrats in Congress, he says, are making policy decisions on Iraq based on their reading polls that suggest the war is unpopular. "I think they're overreading them. I think they're misinterpreting them. I think they're going to overreach," he predicted. "These attempts to cut off funding , especially at this stage in the game that the Democrats are trying to do back-door and now front-door, are tragic," he says. "We are on the verge of a major defeat for this country. These are serious times and it's not about personalities. . . . To me, it's beyond a pro-Bush, anti-Bush deal in the war and I've been saying the same thing since back when he was 60 percent in the polls."

One longtime Democrat Thompson praised at several points throughout the interview was Senator Joe Lieberman, a staunch supporter of the Iraq War and the War on Terror. Thompson worked closely with Lieberman as the senior senators on the Senate Government Affairs Committee in the late 1990s. Thompson says Lieberman backed him against the interests of his party in several difficult spots when the cameras weren't on. It demonstrated character that Thompson says he saw again when Democrats abandoned Lieberman in his primary contest against liberal upstart, Ned Lamont. Thompson says he admires Lieberman's willingness to fight for an unpopular war.

"I just thought, you know, it was the gutsy, principled thing for him to do. That ought to be rewarded every time we find it." Thompson's PAC gave Lieberman $1,000 in August 2006, shortly after his loss in the primary, and another $1,000 in October. (Thompson refused to answer my question about whether he would consider Lieberman as his running mate if he were to win the Republican nomination.)  ...

Read the whole thing.

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Fred's Debut
Ed Morrissey

Fred Thompson appeared last night at the Lincoln Club, an influential group of California power brokers in the GOP, giving a speech which broadly outlines his agenda. Given that the Lincoln Club could have invited almost any of the 2008 primary candidates to speak at their annual dinner, the choice of Thompson gives the impression of a tacit endorsement of his candidacy -- and the Lincoln Club’s endorsement (tacit or otherwise) carries a powerful weight to anyone fortunate enough to receive it.

The speech itself serves as an excellent entrée into the race. On the Iraq war, he remained steadfast in its central importance to American global security. On economics and taxes, he stayed close to the federalist philosophies that have become his hallmark. Thompson also attacked government waste, red tape, and its intrusion into areas without a Constitutional mandate -- and its poor performance when it does.

I've extensively reviewed the speech at Heading Right. ...