He was very good on last night's Law and Order.

You should send this to www.fred08.com

I kind of like Thomspon, but can't help noting a the following:

1) When he had the opportunity to show that campaign finance abuses were a bipartisan matter, he chose to focus on benefitting the Republican party by mostly ignoring Republican shortcomings in that area.

2) The "pro-family" Republican party seems to be putting forth a sea of divorced candidates to proclaim that Democrats are anti-family.

3) Thompson was an enthusiastic advocate of invading Iraq and a caustic and snide critic of anyone who disagreed.

4) It isn't clear that he has had either a clear or principled view on abortion, but rather one that could be described as politically opportunist. Typically of many politicans, he blames unnamed junior staff people as the source of confusion.

5) He claims that he never saw a survey filled out by his campaign in which he is said to call for a decrease in AIDS funding. For Thompson, does the buck stop by blaming campaign workers for muddling his political positons? (The National Review at the time (1994) described Thompson as "pro-choice." He now says they were misinformed, but I'm not seeing the evidence that he disputed that characterization at the time.

Joel,

1) I'm curious to know more specifically what you're referring to here.

2) I don't think that having a divorce should automatically disqualify a person from advocating pro-family policies. If a person commits adultery or "shacks up," then yes, that hurts their credibility a lot. Of course, cetera paribus, I'd prefer a candidate who has maintained a single strong marriage throughout his/her adult life, but in today's society, being divorced doesn't necessarily equate to a lack of respect for the family.

Also, I presume the "anti-family" charges you refer to are aimed at Democratic policies, not Democrats' personal lives.

3) That obviously doesn't bother me as much as it would someone who believes that invading Iraq was a mistake.

4) As far as I can tell, Thompson's position during his Senate career was one of supporting many limitations on abortion, but keeping it legal during the first trimester. Actually, I do think it's a principled position, because it is consistent with principles of limited government and federalism. Has he made significant changes to his position in the last couple years?

5) The survey I linked above also contains his repsonse that he'd "slightly decrease" spending on AIDS research. Personally, I think that's a reasonable position, because we spend a lot more on AIDS relative to the number of people who die from it than we do for other diseases such as cancer. If he's trying to disavow that position now, that's unfortunate, but unfortunately not unusual for a politician. (On the other hand, such surveys are often filled out by staffers, so it's plausible that it might not represent his "official" position.)

"we're gonna have to think differently about solutions"

Like that. And for anyone who says there's no substance there, check out his ABC commentaries -- they're brilliant, and right on the major isues of the day.

FDT is gonna be big. Great video, Josh

Finally, someone to steal some of that internet limelight that Conservative Republican and Presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul's been getting in the past month (heck...he's raised $2.2M dollars and has added 10,000 NEW YOUTUBE subscribers in one month, not to mention that he's in the top 2 searched terms in blogosphere now for 5 weeks!) I have 2 questions for Fred. 1. Will he back the Council on Foreign Relations plan and take the USA into the 'North American Community' by 2010, as their report says they hope to ambitiously achieve (he is a member of that group). And 2) Does he think his intense lobbying efforts for foreign interests in Washington will help shape his foreign policy as much as it's helped his bank account (It's only a measly $700K a year folks - he makes way more than that as an actor).