WORST OF ALL WORLDS: FREDDY THOMPSON IS ANTI-CHOICE-- EXCEPT WHEN PRO-CHOICE GROUPS ARE PAYING HIM TO LOBBY FOR THEM

I don't having anything against whores-- unless they're political whores who use the trust the public has bestowed on them, to enrich themselves. If you've been following DWT you've probably noticed we castigate quite a few of them, and from both parties. No Republican can say their reputations get beaten up more brutally than Rahm Emanuel's or Steny Hoyers, the Democrats' two top congressional K Streetwalkers-- not even Jerry Lewis, John Doolittle or Tom Delay. But lately we've been seeing a lot about one lady of the night politician of ill repute who really takes the cake: Republican lobbyist Freddy Thompson. You may have found it gross to learn that he roped his two feebleminded sons into his lobbying business so he could use them to funnel bribes to the family enterprise while he was a U.S. Senator. But today's L.A. Times has something even more mindboggling, at least for a right-wing Republican running for president.

OK, keep in mind that Thompson is trying to claim he's further right than the 10 other old, white pygmies running for the Republican nomination, on all the issues the bigots and haters of the dominant far right extreme of the GOP get all worked up over. He was the head of the free Scooter Mandela Committee. He wants to kick more immigrants' ass than anyone short of Tancredo. He'll soon be denying he's enjoyed some good old times with members of his own sex. But when he comes to being anti-choice he's claimed he's as pure as the driven snow. Turns out, we don't need Frank Zappa to tell us Freddy's snow is pretty yellow. A whore to the core, Mr. Anti Choice never let his professed principles stand between him and a quick buck.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as a "pro-life" Republican, accepted a lobbying assignment from a family-planning group to persuade the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and five people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for the former senator denied that Thompson did the lobbying work. But minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. show that the group hired Thompson that year.

His task was to urge the administration of President George H.W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that receive federal money, according to the records and the five people who worked on the matter.

The abortion "gag rule" was a major political flashpoint at the time. Thompson's lobbying would clash directly with the anti-abortion movement that he is now trying to rally behind his campaign for president.

Needless to say Freddy and his allies are hysterical over this and calling everyone they know to deny it. He's clearly lying, as the Times story demonstrates without question.


NY TIMES FINDS EVEN MORE WEE WEE IN THOMPSON'S ABORTION SNOW JOB

Maybe he wasn't as much a hypocrite as we thought when we found out he took on a lobbying job for pro-choice groups. Apparently he wasn't as anti-choice then as he is out of the hustings in South Carolina these days. Must every single one of these Republican candidates prove himself to be an arch flip flopper?

Mr. Thompson has also sometimes indicated that he opposes outlawing abortion. Among other things, he has opposed a constitutional amendment banning all abortion-- something the Republican platform calls for-- again on the grounds that the issue should be up to the states.

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.”

In addition, the Gannett News Service has reported that another questionnaire submitted during Mr. Thompson’s 1994 campaign contained a handwritten note that stated: “I do not believe abortion should be criminalized. This battle will be won in the hearts and souls of the American people.”

It really must suck to be a wing nut trying to find a candidate. They might as well all just got for Tancredo. He really is what they are all about anyway.