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USA Today ran an article stating Thompson: Doesn't like campaign process, 'will not be devastated' if he loses.
Once again, they got it completely wrong. Maybe because the reporter was not even there.
Update: Find out what the man who asked the question thought.
This speech was given 44 years ago. Amazing how true it is today.
Especially today.
UPDATE [Chris]: The full video of the program, and a transcript, are both here.
A champion of Liberty has fallen. The world is diminished, and I'm afraid that we will all feel the affects of her passing.
I discovered this awful news from the television in the lunchroom at work. There were several people watching the news with me (mostly 20-something in age and, like many of their cohort, severely deficient when it comes to knowledge of the world) and they were asking those of us who know exactly what this meant and why we considered this an ominous omen. I responded to one young man in particular telling him that Benazir Bhutto was a very courageous woman and brave leader, to which he replied "She should have known better than to have gone back."
I was so incredulous at his statement I couldn't respond. And it's a good thing too, cause if I had he probably would have called the PC police. You see, the young man was black, and while I give him credit for just knowing who Benazir Bhutto was (which NONE of the other 20-somethings in the room did), the only thing I could think to respond with was "Does that mean Dr. King should have known better too?"
Come on people! Dr King, Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, Rafiq Hariri, Benazir Bhutto... these people didn't change the world by hiding in their rooms! They are in the history book precisely because they were leaders - they stood out in front and didn't shy away from danger. Remember when George Bush walked out to the mound at Yankee Stadium just after 9/11?
No matter what your opinion of him as a President, that was a statement by the leader of the free world - "Here I am. You want to get me, then get me, but you are not going to stop our country and her people from being free."
And so it was with Benazir Bhutto. Yes, they got her, but I think that will turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. Ring the bells to mark her passing, but remember...
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne
I strongly suggest this piece by Jed Babbin as "Recommended Reading".
The most moving holiday message of the year. (You might want to grab a tissue.)
Merry Christmas.
I've been telling people about this blooper-roll skit for years, and thinking about it just now I Googled it on a lark. Lo and behold someone put it on YouTube. Make sure you don't have any distractions, and that you have the freedom to make loud gasping noises while pounding on the floor. (It's totally mostly only mildy clean vulgar, but might be NSFW if you can't do that without having the boss call the men in white coats.)
I suppose in a strange sort of way we could call this topical to TBR - after all, isn't it politically incorrect to laugh at midgets and handicapped pachyderms?
I strongly suggest this piece by Paul Ibrahim as "Recommended Reading".
The next time your chosen political candidate expresses regret over "the mess in Iraq", ask them who they're getting that impression from.
I may be an Army guy, but you gotta hand it to those Navy boys. Following the ruckus over the summer where a Board of Supervisors committee considered banning The Blue Angels from the city's Fleet Week festivities, the team's high-speed, low-drag pilots apparently decided to tell San Franciscans what they thought of the idea. With style, baby.
The President of the United States is commonly referred to as the Leader of the Free world. This election, more than any other in recent history, it is imperative for Conservatives to elect, not just a President, but a Leader.
In the Iowa debate yesterday, the Leader stepped forward and the frontrunners fell in behind him. If you missed the debate, the "No Hands" portion of the debate is all you need to see.
Some of the candidates did exactly what the moderator asked and held up their hands. Those candidates were, from left to right, Rudy Guiliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Watch the video again, and pay close attention to these candidates.
All of these men have described themselves as a true leader. Only one stood up and showed true leadership. That man is Fred Thompson.
With all the shooting in malls and schools that have been occurring the past few years, I have an idea that I think will help all those who wish to "Go out in a blaze of glory" or to get back at someone who bullied them, or someone on a sports team, or someone who gets better grades... or someone who wouldn't return their romantic advances.
The first thing we need to do is wreck the two parent home structure by implementing State sponsored welfare and devise a State and Federal taxation scheme that will force any surviving two parent homes to require both parents to work just to stay afloat.
From there we replace the individuals responsible for the parenting duties in each home (AKA, the missing or busy working parents) with officials from or sponsored by the State - Social Workers from DCF, teachers, State Health care providers, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, et al. These people will make sure that an individual child is never disciplined, taught only State proscribed dogma, that the boys are given drugs when they act like boys, that boys and girls are given contraceptives when they try to act like men and women, that the girls can have abortions when the State provided contraceptives don't work, that God is taken completely out of their lives, and then given powerful psychotropic drugs when they exhibit psychological or mental disorders due to a lack of parental guidance, educational guidance and spiritual guidance that has left them lost, confused and depressed.
Next, we need to have the all the popular culture outlets, Hollywood movies, and the Main Stream Media tell girls that they will only get the future they dream of if they are a 5'7, 105lb Blond with big breasts, perfect teeth, alabaster skin, and have sex with all the popular boys, and tell boys that they need to take steroids or HGH to give them muscles, take advantage of those that are weaker than they are, play sports, drink uncontrollably, drive fast, and not just have sex but have babies with as many girls as possible.
As soon as we have confused and depressed as many of these young people as possible, set them up with dreams and aspirations that most can never attain in a world that is not the utopia they were promised, taught them to rely on drugs to numb them and the State to provide for them, that's when we rip it all away and say "OK, you're on your own!"
Most young people will be able to cope with the cruel realities of the world and adjust their lives and expectations accordingly. Some, however, will not. Those that cannot will be angry and frustrated that the world - despite their elevated self-esteem and the promises they have been given by the entire State apparatus all their lives - is not the candy-colored wonderland they had expected. That anger and frustration - and a feeling of impotence to stop it - will only build as they realize that not everyone will accede to their wishes or tend to their needs. Luckily, the State will have thought of this possibility too, and provided zones where these lost, angry and frustrated individuals can go to vent. These will be zones that will not only legally guarantee that no one will be around who can stop them from venting, but will give them plenty of unsuspecting individuals with whom they can express their anger and frustration. These will be called Gun-Free-Zones and... Aw, never mind! What are the chances of all of that happening here in the United States?
President Mike Huckabee
a comment at Ace of Spades
I strongly suggest this piece by Kimberley A. Strassel as "Recommended Reading".
I was having a conversation in the hall this morning with one of my coworkers (as close to a water cooler as we have), and I mentioned that I though that as the primaries drew closer the policy positions of the candidates would take on more and more importance. It was my contention that Fred Thompson was making some people open there eyes thanks to the strength of his published policy positions. My coworker - lets call him Brian (since that is his name) - was not too excited by Fred and didn't think much of his candidacy. The problem is that when I pressed him on what he thought of Fred's policy positions, he said he wasn't too familiar with them.
Huh!?
Come on people! Contrary to popular belief, Rudy and Hillary are not yet the nominees - unless of course you just accept what the MSM feeds you and either regurgitate it back out at the polls or find it too unpleasant or impossible to vote for either of those two and just stay home. It is our responsibility as citizens to read up on what these candidates are proposing for this country, and then vote for the person that we feel is most qualified. A President isn't like a toaster you buy at Wal-Mart that you can just take back when it burns your bagel. If Rudy gets in and you find you don't like his social liberalism, or Hillary gets in and you find you don't like Socialism (pogroms, purges, oppressive taxes...) you're just SOL! You can't take a President back for a different model if they don't work out the way you wanted.
You can disengage from the process if you want. Go ahead, stay at home if you find it too complicated, frustrating, or mentally taxing. But if you do, don't you dare complain about who we end up with as President for the next 4-8 years!
To be honest, I'm not yet 100% in the Fred camp myself (maybe 75%), but with the personal, policy, and ideology questions that are arising with regard to all the other candidates, it seems to me that Fred is playing the part of the cream... rising to the top.
Want to know more about Fred or any of the other candidates? It's never been simpler. Just visit their websites. It'll probably take you less time to learn all you need to know about these candidates than you spend in traffic on any given day. Here's one to get you started...
And here is another.
I strongly suggest this piece by Holman W. Jenkins Jr. as "Recommended Reading".
In an effort to welcome one of our newer contributors, Doug, and to prove to him that I like some of the things his messiah chosen Presidential candidate has to say, I bring your attention to a NewsBuster article regarding Ron Paul's appearance on "The View."
While I believe that there are more reasons to oppose abortion than just the fact that Roe-v-Wade is inherently bad law (anti-federalist at least, totally unconstitutional at worst), I must say I like Ron Paul's Federalist position with regard to many issues. I too agree that the Federal Government has been, is now, and will continue to stick it's nose much too far into our business and we need to restrict that whenever and wherever possible. And I like the way Mr. Paul maneuvered Joy Behar (and Whoopi Goldberg to a lesser extent) into admitting that - at least in some circumstances - abortion is murder, even if that was just a tacit admission. Whenever you can get flaming liberals to admit something like that in front of a nationally televised audience it is a net gain. Kudos to Mr. Paul for taking it to these two, staying on message and being consistent with his argument (a problem, I admit, he seldom has).
That having been said, what's up with Whoopi Goldberg's comments:
Well, that’s, that’s the idea. But here’s my question: If you make a decision that this is where you need to go, because I said to somebody else earlier on this show, no one makes this decision lightly. This is not someone somebody says "oh I think I'll go get this." This is not a fun thing to go do. So someone has come to that place to make that decision is because it really needs to be there. Now, I think you should be able to get some help if you're reaching out for somebody like that. What bothers me is that there is no one who says "here’s what we can do" because, you know, we have all of these children. What are we going to do with them? If everybody has the kids. Nobody, the churches don't want to take them. Nobody wants to put them in the thing- no I want to finish the thing, period.
She says "we have all of these children" like that's a bad thing! And "What are we going to do with them?" What kind of question is that? I thought these liberals were all about the children. Whoopi's comments perfectly exemplify what we conservative have been saying for decades - Liberals (and the Democrats they support) all claim to be the compassionate ones, the caring ones, the diverse, the tolerant, but time and time again their motives and machination are betrayed by their words. Whoopi's argument here is that in order to be compassionate about the plight of "all of these children" we need to have the Federal Government sanction their - elimination. (I use the word "elimination" here as a euphemism, and that euphemism is a perfect parallel. Abortion supporters use it the same way now as it was used originally, as a more polite and tactful word to describe an ugly and despicable act.)
This is just one of the reasons we fight so hard against these people. Because in the debate about abortion - as with so many other issues - when the liberals start trying to legislate their compassion, someone usually ends up dead.
PS Whoopi Goldberg's 39 year old child could not be reached for comment.
This morning on The Laura Ingraham Show, NRO Contributing Editor Michael Ledeen called Ron Paul, "a textbook case of a Know-Nothing."
I think this is inaccurate and inflammatory. It's Tom Tancredo who is the Know-Nothing. Ron Paul is the isolationist.
I am greatly disturbed by some attitudes when it comes to choosing a presidential candidate. I keep hearing, "I like (enter candidate name here) but I'm not voting for him because he can't win."
If our founding fathers had this same mentality, on June 7, 1776, when Richard Henry Lee's resolution was received by Congress urging them to declare independence from the British Empire, it would have been voted down "because we can't win". Never before, in the known history of the world, had this radical idea been successful. If it weren't for those brave men who adopted the idea and acted upon this no-win idea, we would not be the country we are today.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some are so concerned about being with the winner that they will put aside their basic beliefs to simply be on the winning side. After all, back in 1776 they had a term for the people who were determined to be on the winning side: they were called turncoats.
All elections are important, especially this Presidential election. To sacrifice what you think is right simply to cast your vote for the candidate that others say will win, regardless of your beliefs, is a complete waste of your vote. When you enter that voting booth in January, February, or whatever month your state's primary is held, vote for the candidate of your choosing because if you don't vote for him, he can't win.
Spurned on by my invitation to Doug, long-time commenter and friend Sue Check has finally relented to also join us as a contributor. Sue is a fierce supporter of Fred Thompson, so I'm hoping to see a Thompson-Paul smackdown between Sue and Doug eventually.
Yah, I'm a troublemaker.
