The Fred Smears Have Begun
John on July 9, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Everyone is talking about this one by the NY Times Style page. The gist is that Fred’s wife, Jeri, is a lot younger and prettier than he is. Actually, to be fair, Jeri is traffic-stoppingly beautiful. Why that’s a negative for Fred’s campaign I’m not sure. The Times piece is only worth reading as an example of pure leftist hackery.
The more serious attack on Fred comes courtesy of the liberals at the LA Times. A group of Hillary supporters suddenly have detailed memories of hiring Fred to lobby on behalf of abortion rights back in 1991. Fred has denied it as has the person he was supposedly lobbying back in ’91. But as this Huff Post blogger points out:
DeSarno’s story to the LA Times is quite detailed, naming the Washington restaurants where her conversations with Thompson took place — dinner at Galileo and lunch at the Monocle — and recalling that at one meal, Thompson told her that Sununu had just given him VIP tickets for a White House tour for his wife and son.
In typical Republican style of attacking the messenger, the right wing blogosphere has accused DeSarno of being a left-wing activist who made the whole thing up.
In other words, the story rings true and Righty bloggers are a pack of drooling loons to doubt it. But something interesting is happening at the LA Times today that Huff Post hasn’t noted yet. They’ve started walking back the story. Allah at Hot Air has details:
The original paragraph:
At one of the meals, she recalled, Thompson re-enacted a cowboy death scene from one of his movies. She also remembered him telling her that Sununu had just given him tickets for a VIP tour of the White House for one of Thompson’s sons and his wife.
And how it reads now, at the same URL that I linked to Friday night when the story first broke:
Thompson kept her updated on his progress in telephone conversations and over meals at Washington restaurants, including dinner at Galileo and lunch at the Monocle, she said. At one of the meals, she recalled, Thompson told her that Sununu had just given him tickets for a VIP tour of the White House for a Thompson son and his wife.
The detail about the cowboy scene is up in smoke, perhaps with good reason: as Geraghty notes, Fred doesn’t seem to have acted in any westerns before 1991.
Oh, but the rest of the story, that’s all true. It’s only the details that were wrong. The LA Times has yet to issue any kind of correction or note of the change.
Down the memory hole!
Category: Politics |
This is a good sign for Fred supporters like me. 1) They obviously fear him. 2) This is the best they can do?! 3) Even if it were true, I doubt it would have much influence. It is just so convoluted.
July 9, 2007 @ 5:50 pmOn the first point, I guess I would ask how would you see things if Fred were a Democrat? Not assuming any answer on your part, just curious if you think it would have an effect. I don’t see anything wrong in his having a younger, beautiful wife, but I can see how people might have a sense of skepticism about their relationship – kind of ‘what does a beautiful woman like her see in an older man like him?’ People might assume a hidden agenda in there.
As far as I’m concerned, as long as they do right by each other, good for them.
I would also agree with Neil. Fred is clearly a strong contender to be the next president of the most powerful nation on Earth. People are bound to dig – it’s good that people dig. If this is the best they can find, then that has to speak volumes for his candidacy.
July 10, 2007 @ 3:52 amFred is a divorced philanderer. He has been romanticly linked to many other girls, and if it were not for money and power his present wife would be out of his league.
The Republican contenders this time around are no moral examples, and they give such obvious lip service to abortion and gay issues but yet evangelicals have no where to go so they are bound.
Maybe we will get another president who is intellectually out of his league. Everyone knows that when a roof has four support beams, if you remove one, you better have a temporary support or your roof will fall. Object lesson #1 – Iraq. It is irrelevant who gets the Republican nomination, he will just waste hundreds of millions of dollars only to genuflect before President Hillary Clinton.
If Christians really had any guts and conviction, they would have formed a third party by now. The defeat in 2008 will sound the return of the Republican minority in both houses for a generation. Thank you, Mr. Bush.
July 10, 2007 @ 7:57 amHenry,
You said, “If Christians really had any guts and conviction, they would have formed a third party by now.” Doesn’t that go against much of what we talked about in the “Hillary’s Secret Scandal” post in which you expressed a large amount of disdain for Christian involvement in politics?
Scott
July 10, 2007 @ 8:34 amYes, I was speaking for Christians who believe God wants them involved. If I did I would start a third party that had certain morals and values at its core and with those values like fiscal conservatism even attract the non-Christians.
Scott – you can see how far the Republican Party has sunk (in earthly terms), is it not time for some believers to step up? Or is it just politics as usual?
July 10, 2007 @ 10:21 am