The Beeb does Fred Thompson.
Here.
“The BBC’s Justin Webb in Washington says the former senator from Tennessee is enormously popular on the right of the party where he is seen as a new Ronald Reagan.
He is known for his conservative views on issues like abortion and gun control.”
Well, not really. Three things the BBC overlook. Deliberately.
Firstly, the debate on the Right is specifically whether Thompson really has Reagan’s qualities, or not. So he is not seen as the new Ronald Reagan as Webb glibly states. For those citizens as opposed to journalists who deal in comparisons of that kind, the real interest on the Right is to “trust but verify” that appearance.
Fred Thompson’s record on abortion has been questioned already, with facts about his stance, including lobbying for a pro-abortion group, having come to light.
Thirdly, Fred Thompson is not so much conservative on “gun control”, as assertive on “the right to bear arms”. He is also a constitutionalist, which means that he would see the debate not in the BBC’s statist controlling terms, but in terms of the Second Amendment.
I was also going to comment on this article on Thompson’s run by Laura Smith-Spark, but really there is nothing interesting in it- and that’s fundamentally the problem the BBC have in covering the US. Characters don’t get much more interesting than Fred Thompson, and his run-in to this announcement has been remarkable. The profile (compiled a while back; updated very recently) is also pretty naff.
More Fred Thompson stuff here, including his announcement that he is running for President.
ed thomas
facts about his stance, including lobbying for a pro-abortion group
Are you sure this is a fact?
I thought Fred Thompson had denied it.
Well, the fact is that people have credibly claimed discrepancies in his record, such that some of the people concerned are amazed at his camp’s denial. The ins and outs I don’t think matter in the context I am talking about: the fact is that his abortion credentials are not unquestioned on the right or by the MSM.
The misstatement that counts is the Beeb’s.
But isn’t it the case that during Thompson’s years in the Senate, his voting-record has been staunchly pro-life?
And the answer to my rhetorical question is: yes, indeedy.
Life site are clearly Fredheads:
..compared to the various other GOP front-runners, Thompson does appear to have a solid record, and has always voted on the side of pro-life and pro-family. As such, many conservatives are enthused about the possibility of a man with apparently solid convictions on matters of life and family who is willing to fill the void of truly conservative, high-profile GOP candidates.
So no ‘mistatement’ then.
Here’s Fred himself:
“When I was in the Senate a lot of people would come to see me and it usually would have to do with business matters or financial matters, or something pertaining to their financial welfare. When you came to see me,” Thompson said to the crowd of pro-life activists, “I always knew it was about something much more important than that, the most important thing of all in this world, and that is life.”
“I must say that those issues are even more profound to me as the years go by. Jeri [his wife] and I have truly been blessed,” he added.
Thompson then went on to highlight his pro-life record, and made explicit his stance on a number of contentious life and family issues. “In 1994 I made my first run for the US Senate and I was proud to receive the National Right to Life endorsement,” said Thompson. “I’ve been with you ever since, and you’ve been with me ever since.”
“On abortion related votes I’ve been 100 percent…On stem cell research, I’m for adult stem cell research, not stem cell research where embryos of unborn children are destroyed. It looks to me like there is a lot of promising developments as far as adult stem cell research is concerned anyway and we don’t need to go down that other road.”
Thompson also added that so-called partial birth abortion is more like “infanticide.”
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/200/jun/07061903.html
It’s the 2nd Amendment that guarantees right to bear arms.
Thanks for that Susan- that was a slip. I thought I’d checked it so I don’t know what happened.
John Reith-
It’s true that Thompson has had the sort of endorsement you describe, but also that contrary voices have been raised. Compared with someone like Guiliani, and even Romney, Thompson has strength in the issue, but Thompson is not, in the US context “known” for his pro-life views. Rather he is regarded as “solid” in this area at best. There’s just a lazy dissonance between Webb’s view and the reality.
By painting Tompson as “enormously popular”, the Beeb is seeking to undermine Rudy Giuliani, the front-runner, and thus help the Democrats win. Politics instead of reporting; in other words, business as usual for the Beeb.
Thank Gawd the Prez must be US born or Blair would be across there asking for a US Passport!
From one Anonymous to another: I think “the Beeb is seeking to undermine Rudy Giuliani, the front-runner, and thus help the Democrats win” is drawing rather a long bow. (But I agree with Ed’s post).
He is also a constitutionalist, which means that he would see the debate not in the BBC’s statist controlling terms, but in terms of the Second Amendment.
Its stuff like this that makes BBBC great.
Thanks Ed Thomas.
Thompson is NOT “enormously popular.” He’s mainly known for being married to a woman a third of his age, and for being older than his own mother-in-law. And for his wife’s physical attributes, the most prominent of which have been nicknamed the Thompson Twins.
Lots of folks on the non-Left are giving Thompson some serious thought lately. It’s not unlikely that he could take the frontrunner’s position, since Giuliani is certainly losing steam. Sure, he still does decently in polls, but once Mitt Romney tied the family dog to the car roof, there was no one else with half a chance. That won’t last now that Thompson has announced his candidacy.
Thompson puts fear into the hearts of Leftoids. The Reagan comparisons seem to be brought up much more frequently by the Left than the Right, which tells you something about how much the media and liberals still loathe the man. I’m sure there was much gnashing of teeth at the BBC when it became clear recently that Thompson was going to run, and run well. He’s the only one that can beat Hillary. In fact, even the Republican candidates are nervous. They spent the first ten minutes of the recent televised debate talking about him, before even getting to any political issues.
The two most important things to notice these days in any report from the Left about Thompson as a candidate are the way they talk about two primo shibboleths of the American Left: abortion and Reagan. If he’s anti-abortion, he’s the Devil himself. If he’s another Reagan, well, since Reagan already was the Devil himself….
With this in mind, I couldn’t help but notice that John Reith made sure to include this bit in his defense of the BBC’s (basically accurate) description of Thompson as being anti-abortion:
Thompson also added that so-called partial birth abortion is more like “infanticide.”
Cue the crashing dissonant chord for the arrival of the panto villain, no?
After already giving clear quotes from Thompson on his stance, I have to ask, JR, why is it necessary to add that? The point that he has long taken an anti-abortion position in his political career, and felt that personally, had already been made. That last bit doesn’t add anything at all. If he’s anti-abortion, full stop, it follows logically that he would be anti-abortion at any point in a pregnancy. If you had worked your way down from the other end, it might make sense.
And why the qualifier “so-called”, eh? I don’t mean to debate the issue itself, of course, but that says it all, really.
And the BBC plays the part perfectly in their coverage of him. We’ll see if they continue to do so.
Also, I should point out that it’s things like this that make Americans think they have a vested interest in the goings on at the BBC. Educating the population of a close US ally in how to think about a very possible future US President is serious business. Some of us notice.
Why is a vicious, conceited, hate-filled person like Justin Webb still being paid by us to live the good life in the US? He once said this:
“America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge. I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture…” BBC’s Washington correspondent Justin Webb, in a remarkably frank admission of his role in misinforming the British public about America and Americans.
Susan —
Actually, the 2nd amendment guarantees the right to form “a well-regulated militia”.
No court ever interpreted as a blanket right to own firearms.
Those who oppose registration of handguns, etc., usually use constitutionalist terms, but it really isn’t applicable.
David Preiser | 07.09.07 – 6:12 am
The sentence about partial birth abortion was not added by me for any particular effect. It was part of the article I was quoting from the website, Lifesite.
As for ‘why the “so-called”‘ – I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the article’s author.
I’m with Thompson rather than you on this one. I am not a squeamish person and have seen plenty of blood in my time and even some guts, but given the descriptions I’ve read of this gruesome procedure, I certainly wouldn’t witness it, let alone condone it. Although the comparison with infanticide may sound hyperbolic, I think it’s probably justified. After all, infanticide rarely involves decapitation.
Infection | 07.09.07 – 8:04 am
a vicious, conceited, hate-filled person …
No-one who knows Justin Webb would recognise him from your description.
`You quote some lines he has written out of context. Here are some more lines from the same article.
I think you’ll agree they give a different impression.
The founding fathers, with a wisdom which truly does echo down the ages, decided that there would be a separation of powers.
General laws would be made by politicians representing the people, but then interpreted and applied by judges.
The founding fathers must be watching from their heavenly perches and wondering at the power of the constitution they created
The reason is simple, to limit the power of government to interfere in any individuals life.
If you can convince the courts that you are legally in the right, then no politician, even the president himself in his pyjamas and on his high horse, can stop you.
It is common to mock at American attempts to export Jeffersonian democracy, but after these two weeks the mocking should stop.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4400865.stm
Fred Thompson is a more dangerous candidate than the BBC could imagine because he represents the right-wing opposition to GWB’s rather leftist stance on immigration and free trade, as examples. Many Americans would support Thompson on these matters in preference to Giuliani or any Dem.
He doesn’t really though, Allan. When he was in the Senate he didn’t vote particularly well on immigration. I remain suspicious.
Tom Tancredo is the only Republican who really has a solid position on immigration, multiculturalism, bilingualism, etc.
John Reith,
That last bit was outside of the cited quotation, leading me to read it as being your own interpretative summary. Thanks for clarifying. My general point stands without using you as evidence, though. Yes, Lifesite are dedicated pro-lifers, but from their point of view, abortion in the third trimester really is “partial birth abortion”, and qualifies as infanticide, although it’s odd that one of their writers chose to precede it with “so-called”. Yes, I have read your source for this.
Both you and Ed Thomas should also read another article on Lifesite discussing the fact that he was not anti-abortion at the beginning of his political career, and has shifted over the years. So his past actions were in fact different. A little more than ten years ago, he was on record as being pro choice. There can be no debate on that. This means that when the BBC and the Left deliberately leave this out, it is because they don’t want us to think about the possibility of someone from their side becoming more *gasp* conservative over time. Mentioning this might put Thompson’s position in a different context, and that goes against the narrative.
In any event, keep your eye on the way the BBC or Left-leaning US voices do their coverage.
Aside from that, please do not assume my stance on abortion, or any other socio-political issue, unless I have stated it somewhere here, you have read my writing elsewhere, or you can make a logical assumption based on other positions I have taken. Having said that, I do see how you could have inferred something from my choice of words, particularly my finger wagging about the “so-called” bit. But I was saying it like that to make a point about how Thompson is covered by the Left, regardless of the nuances of my own position on the issue. Same goes for comparing him to Reagan.
I guess you chose to reveal a little bit about your own position on the matter (as you have done in the past) in order to bolster your own Not-So-Left bona fides here. Perfectly understandable, given the circumstances.
Scott,
Nice try, but you’re wrong. The Second amendment is an individual right. Because the key to “a well regulated militia” is an armed populace. It is what regulates the militia as a last resort. Go back and look at the amendment and see where the commas are. It doesn’t say “in order to form a well regulated militia” what it says is:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
“…the right of the people to keep and bear arms , shall not be infringed.” Period. No “If they join the militia”.
Just for fun, here is a photo of Our Future Possible First Lady, with a glimpse of her famous Continental Divide:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/fred_thompsons_.html