The Superhuman Freddie Thompson
by sarabeth at 5:55 pm on July 20th, 2007 in 2008 Presidential, Corruption, Podium SpinThe Effer has effed up more than is humanly possible.
We really thought that story about Freddie lobbying in support of abortion rights during the George the 41st presidency, and then lying about it this month, was all done. We buried what we thought was going to be the last act in that story — a kind of epilogue, really — in a “Links” post yesterday. And today the ghost of that story walks the streets again.
That name we hung on him was really an inspired one. This guy has a real talent for effing up. Here’s a quick recap, followed by the latest development:
• On July 7, the L.A. Times ran a story saying: “Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction.”
• That story also carried two denials by the Thompson non-campaign. In an email, Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo said: “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period!” In a telephone interview, Corallo 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.”
• However, the L.A. Times reported, the minutes of a Sept. 14, 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. show that the group hired Thompson to lobby for them that year.
• At that point, it was clear that Thompson and his non-campaign had been caught lying about something they preferred had never happened.
• Yesterday, the NYT banged in what we thought was the last nail in the coffin of this story by reporting that there were too billing records: “Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.” The records show that Freddie “spoke 22 times with Judith DeSarno, who was then president of the family planning group”.
• So yesterday the Freddie Thompson water-testing machinery decided to keep the scandal alive by attempting to defend their previous denials. They were obviously hoping that everyone had been so distracted by the David Vitter story that they wouldn’t remember exactly what denials had been issued. (Yes, they don’t seem to understand that those tubes on the internets have no drains through which old facts are consigned to a vast internet sewage system.)
• “A supporter close to Fred Thompson’s unofficial campaign” emailed this explanation to Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network:
There’s been a lot of confusion and inaccurate reporting about Thompson’s position - did he deny, or does he claim not to remember? Are those contradictory positions?
For what it’s worth, Thompson’s denial was to the allegation the LAT made - that Thompson lobbied Sununu for this group. Period. That was what the LAT claimed they had proof of, and that was what we thought was being denied.
Later, the allegation changed a bit - notice that Sununu is not in this NYT story? - and in response to that, Thompson has acknowledged that he genuinely doesn’t recall whether he’d ever spoken to people from that group in ‘91. I believe he’s been, and remains, consistent on those two points:
He didn’t lobby Sununu for this group, and…
He doesn’t recall whether he ever spoke to, consulted, offered legal or political information, etc for this client.
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing in these NYT records that suggests Thompson lobbied Sununu, as was alleged. It appears that Thompson was simply consulted, and asked questions of people he knew in the Bush administration. To the best of my understanding, those are the facts.”
Funny how “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period!” turned out to mean only that he hadn’t lobbied Sununu. Just to be sure, I looked up “period” in all the online dictionaries. I can report with authority that none of them gives “Sununu” as an alternative meaning.
So now somebody will put in the hours to pull up proof that Freddie did too lobby Sununu. That’ll give the whole story one more airing. Then, presumably, Freddie’s non-campaign will not be able to stop themselves from responding with another round of some sh*t or the other.
With any luck, the Freddie Thompson lobbying-and-lying story will provide gainful employment in the journalism industry till whatever date Freddie finally pulls the plug on his presidential aspirations (or has it pulled for him).
May his political epitaph be: “The effing Effer effed, and having effed, moved on.”
JimC wrote:
Seriously who cares if he was hired by these people back in ‘91, I don’t. His record leans pro-life, and I have no doubt he would support pro-life laws and no doubt nominate appropriate judges. So, who exactly is this “scandal” supposed to upset? It’s not like he is defrauding charitable donors or something…
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 6:37 pm ¶
matt wrote:
he lied. but i guess someone unconcerned with honesty, such as yourself, wouldn’t mind that.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 6:45 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
or maybe “the Freddie Thompson lobbying-and-lying story” created too much reading comprehension stress
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 7:18 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
just like JimC — and the voices he listens to — to pretend the story is only about lobbying and not about lying. even after the post put it in so many words.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 7:20 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
I don’t see a lie. I see a hit piece based on some consulting work that apparently no one even bothered to capture any results from, just some alledged receipts, whoa, scandalous.
Even if there are actual billing receipts, that doesn’t show that he lied about anything, even if his spokesman said there were none, well, perhaps he should have said, “to our knowledge” but of course we all know if it is uttered, if it is written down, if it is on the internet, according to The Late Late Show’s Craig Ferguson, “It must be true!”….and its too late, you can’t possibly correct yourself.
To be considered a liar on this side of the line doesn’t take much, so the slop has to get thicker than this…
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 8:54 pm ¶
matt wrote:
because you’re fucking blind. and don’t understand the meaning of words. there’s something wrong with you.
this is as black and white as a subject gets. his spokesman lied, quite obviously at thompson’s behest. (how else would he know?) proof came out. it’s a done deal.
had you said: i don’t care, i’m voting for the baby-killer anyway because he’s the least bad of a horrifically pathetic field, i’d have laughed in your face, but it still would have been all in the game. but you just can’t be honest enough to do that. you have to assign new meanings to words and pretend things didn’t happen that did. to top it all off, you add this: “To be considered a liar on this side of the line doesn’t take much”
to which i say, a lie is a fucking lie. and since any republican can do whatever and unless your god himself comes down and calls it a lie, it isn’t. well, that isn’t the game here, and it never will be.
and i have reached the point where i no longer think you deserve to be here. you’re wasting our time with dishonest nonsense, and that time has past. make honest, coherent arguments that aren’t contradicted by all available information, you your comments will simply be deleted. if you can’t make an honest argument with accepted definitions of words, the next step is another ban. it won’t take everyone begging me to ban you this time either.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 9:31 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
but people begging you can’t hurt either, and I do hereby beg.
The kind of stuff JimC’s been spouting lately makes absolutely no damn sense at all. #5 is just lunatic-crazy.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 10:13 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Ok, I’m asking you to show me the lie. I know you hightlight the part from party #2, where Mark Corallo said “there’s no billing records”, and then party #1 produces billing records (by the way, what do these billing records say? Do they detail work done? Or do they have just dollar amount written to the law firm or to Thompson directly? without this information, I’m sorry if I can’t just accept one side over the other, perhaps the records are forged, the document equivalent of a lie, who knows at this point). But to really be considered a lie, someone must prove that Mark Corallo in fact knew there were records to begin with.
That’s the difference between you and I, you convict at the drop of a hat, I don’t. He said something that turned out to be incorrect, therefore he must have lied. What kind of logic is that?
So far we have two sides of a story, you’ve picked your side, I actually haven’t. I don’t know if Marc Corallo (thereby Fred Thompson) lied or not because I cannot make that judgement based on the given statements. You can make your opinion that he lied because his statements turned out to be incorrect but that is NOT PROOF OF LYING!
The burden to cross over into lying is much higher than simply being incorrect, that is my argument. If it comes out that Fred Thompson has a file named “My copy of Billing Records for baby killer group” and then instructed Marc Corallo to deny it, then fine, he lied, but you and no one else knows that for sure and until then, his statement was merely incorrect…..
I know I am challenging the authority here with these kinds of comments but they are not in breach of our exhanged agreement. I am making argument here not making stuff up nor am I simply dismissing anything in your post.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 10:40 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
To just in case, if I truly am not making any sense, then I put forth the illness defense. I have been running a fever for the last 11 days and not sleeping much. I am on antibiotics….that is all.
Posted 20 Jul 2007 at 10:46 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Ok here is an interesting take: the NYT article says that “he lobbied “administration officials” for a total of 3.3 hours, the records show, although they do not specify which officials he met with or what was said.”
Lobbied for 3.3 hours over a 14 month time period? That’ some stellar lobbying. The “truth” looks more like that Thompson was a consultant just like he said. That nearly 20 hours of work over that much time period is more indicative of consulting for someone else in the law firm who was the actual lobbyist. It is therefore very believable that Thompson would not have recalled the work nor would it be far fetched to believe that Thompson may not have known about the records, if all the billing were done via the law firm on a consultant basis.
Billed for 3.3 hours for lobbying? could have been spent traveling to the whitehouse or wherever and handing over a document with the Baby Killer groups concerns over a lunch and drinks.200 hours of billed time would have been more concerning and believable…
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 12:35 am ¶
sarabeth wrote:
matt, just put everyone out of their misery. please!
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 4:56 am ¶
matt wrote:
when a republican or religionist is involved. and that is exactly my point. the day democrats get this benefit of the doubt is the day you can try this bullshit again. not one day before.
Corallo: “Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period!”
vs
“Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.” The records show that Freddie “spoke 22 times with Judith DeSarno, who was then president of the family planning group”.
no one asked you what he did, how many drinks he had, or if he performed any abortions personally. he lobbied. for 20 hours, not 3.3 unless you are also suggesting he overbilled them (fraud).
you most certainly are making shit up, you’re redefining lying. consider our agreement in limbo based on you recent nonsense.
and this:
is just further proof that you are wasting our time. i know you can’t read at the same level as the rest of us, but have someone semi-intelligent explain this to you: stop fucking around. it may be enjoyable for you to push your luck and see how far you can take it, well, the answer is you’re already taken it too far.
remember, you begged me to let you back here, i did it in good faith. ignoring what i’m telling you in the comments to this post alone has pissed me off to the point of ending our little experiment. i am in no way joking.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 6:17 am ¶
JimC wrote:
Let’s put aside accusations of lying for a moment, given the fact that these supposed records, and I would still like to see them and not take NYT description of them at face value, do show that 20 hours were billed for work that Fred Thompson did working for the law firm that represented NFPRHA in it’s desire to lobby the whitehouse. That is 2.5 days of work spread out over a period from 1991-92.
from the original claim from Judith DeSarno:
But they now the records show only 20 hours of work, and the NYT article specifically says that the records show that Thompson spent a total of 3.3 hours
So out of the 20 hours of work the records show, 3.3 hours were in fact actual lobbying, not several months worth as DeSarno claimed (no I won’t call her a liar).
The above quote also states that Thompson spoke with DeSarno 22 times over this period, subtracting out the 3.3 hours billed as lobbying, that leaves 16.7 hours left for these conversations assuming no other work was done that wasn’t billed. That equates to roughly 45 mins per conversation. Of course we don’t have the actual records to examine for ourselves to determine how distributed the work was over that roughly years time but it clearly shows clear evidence that very little work was done by Thompson.
.
The family planning association became a
through Michael Barnes, a former Democratic congressman who was then a partner at the firm. The firm’s current chairman, Marc Fleischaker, said, “Regardless of whatever the political ramifications are, Fred was being a good colleague
.”
From this it is clear that the law firm Arent Fox billed the client for Thompson’s work which would have paid Thompson through the law firm. I know a little about Project Accounting and it is very plausible that time was billed on this project/client and 20 hours of which was billed as Thompson as the resource. Therefore it is very plausible that Thompson may not have known of the billing records since the work was done on behalf of Arent Fox and it is entirely plausible that 2.5 days work done 15-16 years ago in a extremely part time basis may not have been recalled by Fred Thompson. In addition, it is enitrely plausible that Fred Thompson didn’t recall lobbying for this group because he may not have. 3.3 hours for Fred Thompson as “lobbying” according the the NYT article but the article says that it is not known who he talked to nor what was said. Do we know if Thompson recorded this 3.3 hours as lobbying or was it the law firm who charged it to that WBS item? It is entriely plausible that Thompson may have spoken with someone at the whitehouse for 3.3 hours and then told that to the Arent Fox who then recorded it as
Unfortunately, there is not enough detail in the records from what I gather to accurately describe Thompson’s role but since only 2.5 days work was done over a year’s time, with 3.3 hours specifically billed as “lobbying”, the premise that Thompson was a lobbyist for NFPRHA for “months” was at the least exaggerated and most likely not accurate in describing the work he did for them. More probable is that he was in fact simply consulting on a part time basis for Arent Fox and advised this client during 22 conversations (in 16.7 hours) and may have spoken with someone at the whitehouse about this client for 3.3 hours, is this really proof to characterize Thompson as a pro-abortion lobbyist?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:04 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
The blockquote beginning with “The billing records” should have went all the way to “by helping out one of the firm’s partner.”, somehow my blockquote got mutilated…
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:08 pm ¶
matt wrote:
what the fuck part of:
does your bible-addled pea brain not process?
20, 3.3, 2.5, so the fuck what? he took money from babykillers, and then lied about it. there are plenty of democrats who are more pro-life than this. i don’t see you defending them with the intensity of a rabid ferret.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:20 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
JimC, before you show up to let fly here, you should at least take your head out of your ass.
Right after saying “That is 2.5 days of work spread out over a period from 1991-92″ you take Judith DeSarno to task for saying that “Thompson lobbied for the group for several months” because “3.3 hours were in fact actual lobbying, not several months worth as DeSarno claimed (no I won’t call her a liar)”?
What kind of dishonest assholery is that?
Anyone can see she meant Thompson’s lobbying for the group was spread out over several months.
Anyone except Jim-head-up-the-ass-C.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:24 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
…sensitive moronic dishonest partisan rabid ferret
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:25 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
short version of Jimmie’s defense of freddie in #13:
plausible deniability is always a valid defense against a charge of lying, and it is always plausible to deny deliberate deceipt by saying I just didn’t remember the truth.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:31 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
or letting Corallo or Jimmie say it for you
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:31 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
I’m ok with that because I don’t believe he held their views.
I’m not going to even talk about lying liars anymore, it serves no point.
On issues of pro-life, if they need defending then I will defend them, I just haven’t heard of any of them being characterized in the same fashion as Fred, if you can direct me to one, I would glady defend their pro-life stance like a rabid ferret.
The same kind that claims that Fred Thompson is a pro-abortion lobbyist and then writes about it in a news paper article. The record shows 20 hours of work, which is 2.5 days of work, and out of that only 3.3 were billed as lobbying. Did Thompson spread 3.3 hours of lobbying out over several months? That’s even worse. 3,3 hours in one shot is barely recognizable as lobbying let alone spread out over several months. My point is that this is hardly evidence of a pro-abortion lobbyist and more accurately fits the decription of consulting and giving advice.
That is all I can say about it. The records claim of 20 hours of work. That’s only a fraction of the time I spent drunk or stoned during any given year at college….
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:40 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
do we know that atoms consist of electrons, protons and neutrons? have you and i seen electrons? inside an atom? so we’re just going to take somebody’s word for it? somebody who may well be practicing that form of witchcraft known as political science?
and suppose the electron doesn’t remember ever being inside an atom? suppose the electron never showed up for work, but was paid anyway? what we assume to be science could be just payroll fraud.
Or maybe the electron was inside an atom only on an extremely part-time basis (whatever the fuck that means)? maybe the atom was slightly pregnant at the time?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:41 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
It means that 20 hours of work over a year’s time is nothing, you can rack up 20 hours in a year just deleting junk email. 20 hours in one work week is barely part time, let alone over a year….it shows that this work was nothing a but a tiny pimple on Fred’s hind quarters. Sure he probably knew he once had a pimple there but couldn’t really recall having said specific pimple and how much it might have made him uncomfortable to sit on…
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 1:49 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
do you have the slightest idea what specific period Freddie 20 hours of billed work actually spanned? if not, will you kindly stop repeating the phrase “over a year’s time” (and variants thereof) with deceitful intent?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:20 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
you should feed that line of defense to Vitter too. presumably he spend less than 20 hours in a year cavorting with prostitutes, so his transgression is also of the same order as deleting junk mail.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:22 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
matt, will you not lance this pimple before our heads explode?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:24 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
No because we haven’t seen the records for outselves…and I stated as such so I can only assume that since the records cover that timeframe that the work has some distribution across that timeframe, but even if it were in one week’s time frame, it amounts to very little work still…and that is my point, that regardless of any other fact, 20 hours is not a considerable amount of time and cannot be indicative of Thompson’s stance on abortion.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:33 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
and who on the planet is supposed to have alleged that 20 hours is a considerable amount of time and is therefore indicative of Thompson’s stance on abortion?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:38 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Matt, I don’t know what else I can do. I haven’t made any false claims against you are sarabeth, I haven’t attributed anything to you falsely, I am trying to make arguments even if they may not be of the caliber you desire, I am still trying to make them the best I can, I don’t know what else I can do other than just not comment anymore. If you tell me to not comment, then I will stop….
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:38 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
you or sarabeth, sorry no freakishness intended…
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:39 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
wasn’t there a rule somewhere about not preening yourself over shooting down things that nobody has said?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:40 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Isn’t that what the LATimes and NYT articles are trying to paint Thompson as, as a closet pro-abortionist who is now running on the anti-abortion platform?
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:40 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
I don’t know what you mean…if I have let me know and I will learn not to do it again…
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:42 pm ¶
matt wrote:
no points for effort here.
who cares what you think they are trying to do. do ascribe motives to them either. he lied. if you don’t understand that, then it is time for you to stop. we aren’t arguing abortion, bias, degree of babykilling, or your specific sensitivities. he’s a liar, and in this specific case, he played himself.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 2:58 pm ¶
Matthew Tobey wrote:
If that is somehow not the definition of an indisputable lie, can I get a real-world, non-hypothetical example of an actually indisputable lie? This is directed to Jim, in case that’s not clear.
Posted 21 Jul 2007 at 8:16 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
I’m done trying to explain it. He’s clearly a liar, let’s move on….
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 1:58 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
so no real-world, non-hypothetical example is actually possible, huh? who would have thought it?
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 7:13 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
Sarabeth, you are the kindest, most lovable, cheerful, optimistic person on the planet.
Good enough?
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 7:31 pm ¶
matt tobey wrote:
FAIL
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 7:40 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
there you go, matt tobey — your perfect example, as per JimC.
He thinks he’s being funny, when actually he’s just wimping out. But maybe he’s incapable of seeing even that, so let’s spell it out for him.
Here’s what you are supposed to be providing: a real-world, non-hypothetical example of an actually indisputable lie.
That means an example which is a lie by your definition, and does not stop being a lie simply because the alleged liar says: “nope, that’s no lie”.
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 8:05 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
Funny, but the number of people who think 37 is true far outnumber the number of people who think it’s a lie. Of course, I do say so myself…
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 8:06 pm ¶
matt wrote:
this is turning into a farce. jim is trying to re-define the word lie. i’m not going to suffer this anymore. it’s just the katrina bamboozle all over again, or tony snow on the us attorney firings.
jim, there’s something wrong with you. in #20 where you said: “That’s only a fraction of the time I spent drunk or stoned during any given year at college….” i believe you. but i think you did some damage. you would never stand for this argument if it was a democrat, or someone in the media who lied like this. your hair would be on fire. the fact that you won’t see that, and insist on playing this game, making all of us correct your absurd definitions and sift through your pathetic points is enough already.
has anyone in the administration lied in the last 6.5 years? don’t answer “well, they’re human, it’s bound to happen” either. we’ve called many administration officials liars, lots of elected officials too. do you think we unfairly labeled all of them? perino, gonzalez, card, anyone?
i resent having to argue definitions of words with sac, imagine how i see having to repeat that with you. this shit isn’t going to work anymore. i don’t care what nonsense you believe, but intellectual honesty is now a requirement here. that means we’re not playing games about what someone’s intent was when they tried to push a provable lie. we talk about the highest political events in the land, if people can’t keep their stories straight or stfu if they don’t know, they will be called liars here. that’s not open for debate, and i’ll be damned if i leave comments up challenging such a characterization.
lie = misleading by saying something false. got it?
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 8:54 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
We’ll see…I don’t accept that characterization and in the future, if you catch me doing so, call me on it, and I will never comment on here again….I promise.
There is a measure of evidence that would convince me that Corallo lied, it hasn’t been found yet in my opinion, and it all boils down to whether or not those 3.3 hours billed as lobbying are accurate and someone was actually lobbied by Thompson, if someone is found to have been lobbied by Thompson and it backs up those 3.3 hours billed as such, then it becomes a lie to me, and that’s all it is, and that’s my opinion.
If Corallo was on trial in a death sentence situation and it all boiled down to this evidence, he would be lucky to have me on his jury….
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 10:05 pm ¶
matt wrote:
jesus fucking christ. i recommend you go into hibernation for a bit. i’m not joking.
Posted 22 Jul 2007 at 10:22 pm ¶