Fred Thompson: Pro-Abortion Lobbyist

So, since the McCain campaign is so strapped for funds that they’re eating out of the same can of Beefaroni and sleeping under a blue tarp these days—the road is wide open for upstart candidate Fred Thompson of TV’s “Law and Order”? Right?

All the ducks were lined up: Thompson’s agent had a meeting with the GOP, they were cold at first—they told the agent to leave Thompson’s headshot and resume at the desk with the girl, “don’t call us, we’ll call you” bullshit...But Thompson’s agent kept calling them, he kept dipping his wick. Selling them on how absolutely right he’s be for this “Mr. President” part, starting the “buzz.” He arranged a series of public appearances at some very high profile venues—“real classy stuff, Freddy, no supermarket openings, no leg-and-fanny shots—“ “That’s good, because I’m an artist—“ “We know, baby, we know—“

And all that payed off. It culminated with Thompson’s appearance before the evangelical powerbrokers’ secret society, the Council For National Policy. This was a make or break audition for Thompson. You got to have the evangelical millionaire media in your corner; they’re make or break in the sticks. And it’s not like Freddy nailed it—he’d wanted to open with the big number from “Cats”, but thank God, his handlers talked him out of that and instead he talked to the Jesus marketers about what a raw deal Scooter Libby was getting...

What were they thinking? Freddy plays a conservative, he can do it in his sleep, and this is the audition for the Council For National Policy—the big time; this is Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, the Hunts from Texas, the ex-John Birch Society nuts who are using Jesus’ name to take political power! They don’t wanna hear you play a sad song on the smallest violin in the world about Scooter Libby—they want to hear you talk about family values, how you’re gonna role back Roe v. Wade if you get in—

Still, it wasn’t a total disaster. Freddy didn’t exactly nail it, but he was still in consideration. They told him he’d have to do a screen test (which is kind of an insult to a star of Freddy’s stature) but he agreed to eat shit at least until the latest numbers on the potential candidates came in.

And Freddy’s numbers were good; he was trouncing McCain, even. You gotta understand how important this part was to Freddy—if he was to get this “President” thing, it would do for his career what playing “The Godfather” did for Brando (an artist that Freddy very much admires.) He really wanted this part bad, he’s pacin’ up and down his trailer sayin’ to himself “I hope I get this, I hope I get this—“

Then, today: disaster. I mean we’re talkin’ a real shit sandwich, delivered hot and ready for Freddy to eat. In the New York Times, yet.

Group Says It Hired Fred Thompson in Abortion Rights Bid

By JO BECKER and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: July 7, 2007

Former Senator Fred D. Thompson, who has positioned himself as an opponent of abortion rights as he prepares to run for president, was hired as a lobbyist 16 years ago by a group on the other side of the issue, according to documents and people involved with his hiring.

(JESUS H. CHRIST!)

The group, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, hired Mr. Thompson in 1991, three years before he was elected to the Senate from Tennessee, as part of the group’s effort to overturn a ban on federally financed family planning clinics giving women information about abortion, according to the group’s board minutes and former president.

(Oh my God! THIS is why he wouldn’t do his big “abortion” number at the Council For National Policy audition!)

In the group’s board minutes of September 1991, Ms. DeSarno (of the NFPRHA) reported hiring Mr. Thompson to “aid us in discussions with the administration.” Ms. DeSarno, who provided the minutes, said in an interview that Mr. Thompson served as the group’s liaison to the White House.

A spokesman for Mr. Thompson said yesterday that Mr. Thompson had “no recollection of doing any work on behalf of this group.”

(No recollection! You fuckin’ putz, you know how much money we got sunk into promoting you for this part? You got anything else you want to tell us now, Fred? Did you ever play a gay Scoutmaster in a porn video, maybe, and you’re not “recollectin” that? We have to find out about this by readin’ it in the New York Times, for Christ’s sake?)

In a questionnaire that he answered during his successful 1994 Senate campaign in Tennessee, Mr. Thompson or his campaign staff checked a box stating that he believed abortion should be legal under any circumstance during the first three months of a pregnancy. In a televised debate the same year, Mr. Thompson appeared to tell the moderator that he personally disagreed with outlawing abortion. “Should the government come in and criminalize let’s say a young girl and her parents and her doctor?” Mr. Thompson said. “I think not.”

(Oh, my God (hits intercom) Clarisse! Where are my fuckin’ pills, get in here with my pills and a glass of water, this fucking actor is givin’ me a STROKE! How could you do this to us, Fred?)

...Ms. DeSarno said Mr. Thompson gave her regular updates by phone and that she met him on at least two occasions in person. Over dinner at the Washington restaurant Galileo one night, she said Mr. Thompson told her he had spoken with John Sununu, then the White House chief of staff, about the matter.

“Fred had a big smile and he said, how about if only the doctors can talk (about abortion) but not all these other nurses and volunteers,” Ms. DeSarno recalled, referring to a potential compromise on the ban. “It wasn’t formal. It was, ‘How about this?’ ”

("A big smile"...Oh, my God—my heart...my heart, Fred. You killin’ me, Fred, you’re killin’ me...fucking show business...)