THOMPSON JUMPS INTO REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE... SLOW NEWS DAY

When I read the headline, I thought it referred to the other Thompson, the TV actor* from Tennessee who Dobson says isn't a Christian. But it's not. This Thompson is Tommy Thompson, a former governor of Wisconsin and first-term Bush Cabinet member. "Since announcing last year he was forming a presidential exploratory committee to raise money and gauge support, Thompson has lagged behind better-known rivals." Badly.

He says he's a reliable conservative and his record proves that. True. But that isn't what the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party-- which completely controls the nomination process-- is looking for. If they were, they would have embraced John McCain, whose voting record in the Senate shows he is as far right as could be and still stand even a chance of passing for someone sane enough to run the government. No, what they want is a raving maniac, a reflection of themselves-- someone who is narrow-minded, bigoted, driven by hatred and irrational fear, obsessed with the propaganda Karl Rove has created through spokespeople like Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity... A relatively serious conservative like Thompson-- this one or the one Dobson says is a non-Christian-- is the day-before-yesterday's news. The GOP should just run Coulter and have done with it. After the Bush Regime it's the logical next step.

Coulter, good little Rovian she is, doesn't get bogged down in sticky and complex questions. Her kind of Republicans, the kind the base craves, just make up their own "facts." Poor Thompson is struggling with reality. The NY Times reports he's trying to think of a solution to the Iraq problem. "Think?" "Solution?" "Problem?" To the GOP base he probably sounds like a goddamn faggot Democrat.

He would have "a completely different Iraq strategy" from the president's. Thompson said he would "demand" that the Iraqi government vote as to whether it wanted the U.S. to remain in the country. If the answer were yes, "it immediately gives a degree of legitimacy." If the answer were no, "We would get out, absolutely. It's a duly elected government."

Oh really? A duly elected government? Duly elected while the invaders and occupiers (that would be us) are running the show. That would be a Quisling or collaborationist government, not a "duly elected government." The American puppet regime in Baghdad is the government of the Green Zone, a heavily guarded, increasingly bombarded, four square mile American base. When the U.S. gives up any members of the "duly elected government" who has not already fled to Australia will be found hanging from lamp posts.


Thompson's solution for resolving the little question of Alberto Gonzales? "I would not have appointed Mr. Gonzales. I would have appointed somebody that was loyal to me." Thompson is only in his 60s so, unlike McCain, we can't excuse that kind of an answer with dementia or incipient senility. Maybe the guy is just a dunderhead. The Times, though is less judgmental: "His time in Bush's Cabinet included anthrax attacks, a flu vaccine shortage and passage of the Medicare prescription drug benefit law." The Times neglected to mention that as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Thompson deceived Congress as to the cost of the Bush Regime's Medicare "reform" bill. He somehow underestimated the cost by $150 billion and threatened to fire an actuary who was going to testify to Congress as to the real costs.

*This Thompson was kind of a TV star as well, albeit briefly. South Park featured him-- played by Ben Affleck-- in the November 14, 2001 episode, How To Eat With Your Butt. (See picture above.)