FREDDY AND SONS-- LIKE THE MOB, ONLY SNEAKIER

"You want to hire my son? Maybe two sons?"

Maybe you thought we were moving past the Thompson-is-a-low-down-dirty-lobbyist meme because of the even worse things that have been coming to the fore about him. We haven't. And neither has the NY Times. Tomorrow's edition has a story about how to Familia Thompson, lobbying has been a family affair.

Like many of the most corrupt and disgusting parasites Inside the Beltway, Thompson made a habit of using relatives-- his two shady sons-- as bagmen to collect bribes from "clients." Danny Thompson was simultaneously a "consultant" for his father-- the Senator's PAC-- and a Nashville lobbyist, and the executive director of the Tennessee Business Roundtable. The Thompson boys had exactly one-- and only one-- qualification: Daddy. None of the Thompsons have ever been arrested on bribery or corruption charges and they have been encouraged enough by what they've already gotten away with so far to take it front and center-- a bid for the White House-- with all the possibilities for graft and corruption inherent in that role. Can they pull it off? God forbid!

In the folksy drawl that built him a lucrative sideline as a screen actor, Mr. Thompson is presenting himself as a reform-minded outsider taking on Washington, just as he did when he campaigned for the Senate as “Ol’ Fred” the “real live country lawyer,” and cruised Tennessee in a rented red pickup truck.

But the lobbying work that Tony Thompson and another son, Daniel, did after their father won his Senate seat suggests how far the family has traveled from Fred Thompson’s early career. Not only has he parlayed his own political background into a lobbying business-- a fact his opponents have seized on to challenge his outsider image-- but his sons have also made lobbying a family affair.

While Thompson mouthed empty ethics reform in the Senate, his two sons were scooping up big bucks from folks who wanted access to their daddy. And if you were an entity that wanted or needed help from Daddy-- like, say, Lockheed Martin-- you hired one or two of the otherwise worthless sons. I shouldn't call them "worthless." One son was a perfectly satisfactory gardener before daddy brought him into the family business and the other one was a good enough Xerox salesman before he joined up. They went from knocking on doors and operating lawn mowers to representing multimillion dollar national conglomerates that wanted access to daddy-- from far right wing beer company/GOP activists Coors to Gallo and a gaggle of HMOs. Fred Thompson blazed a path later followed by all manner of lowlife Republican slime, from Tom DeLay, Rick Renzi and John Doolittle to Curt Weldon and Conrad Burns.

Oh and speaking about low life Republican grafters and crooks, Cunningham is already in prison and Doolittle will soon be joining him for doing exactly what the Thompson Family has been up to. Freddy helped out one of the hopeless sons by putting him in charge of the Thompson Political Action Committee. "In the last two elections," according to the Times, "the committee paid Daniel Thompson more than $170,000 in consulting fees, compared with less than $70,000 it paid toward supporting Republican political campaigns." It wasn't bad enough that we were stuck with Bush for all these years; now the Republicans want to saddle us with this pile of puke?