1115.org

There are those who prostitute themselves in their pursuit of the presidency. Hall of Fame members of this group include Giuliani, McCain, Romney.

And then there are those who prostituted themselves a long time ago, but decided that evidence of prior prostitution doesn’t matter, that it still makes sense to mount a presidential campaign despite such evidence. Or maybe I will owe Freddie Thompson an apology after all? Maybe Freddie will not end up announcing his candidacy, after all?

First there was the Boston Globe story on — fittingly enough — July 4th, about Freddie’s real role during the Watergate hearings. Not to put too fine a point on it, Freddie was a mole for the White House. This is not just a matter of scurrilous allegations being leveled by people who would love to see Freddie’s presidential aspirations go “Poof!” This is Freddie’s (henceforth, The Effer) own effing account:

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight — asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system — he telephoned Nixon’s lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong, who remains upset at Thompson’s actions.

“Thompson was a mole for the White House,” Armstrong said in an interview. “Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”

The hilarious part is that The Effer boasts on what we can only call his campaign website about his role in the Watergate hearings. To hear Freddie tell it, he was singlehandedly responsible for bringing down Richard Nixon’s house of cards. He was the “hard-charging counsel on the Watergate committee” who took the lead in revealing “the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office”.

The funny thing about running for president when you have prostitution in your past is that you might possibly get away with just being a prostitute, with the help of some mighty fast talking and some really professional spin doctors. But the one thing the public really doesn’t like very much is a hypocritical prostitute. When it turns out you had the bloody balls to boast about what was actually an act of prostitution, that is usually regarded as adding an unacceptable amount of insult to injury.

The American public seems to have the attitude that if you eff me once, I might forgive and forget, but if you eff me two times, dude, I have some real problems with you. For my money, I think The Effer has effed with us way too many times.

Take the other highlight of his presidential aspiration week, the story about how he put out for a pro-abortion rights group in 1991 (that’s effing his base once, for those who are scoring this at home) and then had his campaign deny it last week (which completes the double play right there, an unassisted double play, folks, give the man an effing hand, and let’s carry him off the field):

Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican (Funny how the L.A. Times describes him as “campaigning for president”, innit? When everyone knows he’s just testing the ruddy waters, for cryin’ out loud.), accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter.

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

Do read the whole story, because the bad smell surrounding he who was trying to be the Republican Party’s knight in shining armor only gets worse, but that’s it in a nutshell right there. He lobbied for a pro-abortion rights group. His campaign denied it categorically. And now they’re caught in the lie.

I hate to re-use my own past lines, but The Effer is caught in the ruddy headlights, and those things you see bunched around his ankles are not only his trousers, but also his underpants.

His campaign denied it using the worst possible language too, under the circumstances:

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period,” he said in an e-mail.

In a telephone interview, he added: “There’s no documents to prove it, there’s no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn’t happen.”

The focus wasn’t even “He didn’t do it.” It was much more like: “No one will be able to prove he did it, and so since there’s no proof, we’re just going to go ahead and deny it, y’all. Eff you.” (They might as well have added: “That’s our story, y’all, and we’re sticking to it, like a dog to a bitch, pardon our French!”)

To which the universe seems to have responded: “No, eff you, Mr. Effer!” Because there is, of course, proof. How could there not be?

But Judith DeSarno, who was president of the family planning association in 1991, said Thompson lobbied for the group for several months.

Minutes from the board’s meeting of Sept. 14, 1991 — a copy of which DeSarno gave to The Times — say: “Judy [DeSarno] reported that the association had hired Fred Thompson Esq. as counsel to aid us in discussions with the administration” on the abortion counseling rule.

Former Rep. Michael D. Barnes (D-Md.), a colleague at the lobbying and law firm where Thompson worked, said that DeSarno had asked him to recommend someone for the lobbying work and that he had suggested Thompson. He said it was “absolutely bizarre” for Thompson to deny that he lobbied against the abortion counseling rule.

I doubt if even The Effer’s effing liars want to start alleging that Judy DeSarno forged the minutes of the meeting back in 1991 just in case Freddie — who had spurned her adulterous advances — ever decided to run for President. Though I would absolutely love to hear what the unofficial spokesmen for his non-campaign have to say about these documents that weren’t supposed to exist.

So what do we have so far? Back-to-back revelations about acts of past prostitution, the first distinguished by past hypocrisy, the second garnished with present bald-faced lies.

The bad news is that that’s not all. The Effer’s reaction to the second incident is like a double scoop of insult being heaped on top of injury.

The other day I wrote of Freddie:

At least Bush waited till after he was elected to start breaking the laws.

Bush also waited till after he was elected to stop pretending he was accountable to the American people. Freddie has launched into “Eff accountability” even before he formally declares his candidacy:

Thompson gave an oblique response when asked about the matter, first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

“I’d just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing,” said Thompson, who is considering running for president as a social conservative. He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work.

And there you have it folks, the man who would be President. In his own inimitable folksy homespun words, telling you and I: “Go eff yourself, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. Not my past acts of prostitution. Not my present lies about my past acts. Just effing vote for me, okay? Enough with these effing questions already!”

We deeply empathize with those of our readers who may feel personally bereaved by this turn of events in the political life of Fred Thompson, Esq.

Apparently, The Effer is used to hearing chants of “Run, Fred, Run,” at his non-campaign rallies. At some point it may dawn on him that that’s a mighty ambiguous statement.

Freddie’s non-campaign website extols his “sharp sense of humor”. Let’s hope they’re not lying about that too. Look like he may need it. Assuming, of course, that he can see the funny side of last week’s developments.