A Critical Endorsement (sort of) for Fred Thompson

Via Hot Air, Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday…

There was one candidate who did not display any moderateness or liberalism or have any of his past forays into those areas displayed, and that candidate was Fred Thompson. … …we have a campaign now where most of the candidates are not genuine conservatives. They may be saying they are, but in their past they have done some things that are not conservative in any way, shape, manner, or form — and I think a lot of those things are being overlooked even by friends of mine in the conservative media because the obsession is Hillary…

He didnt come right out and say “Fred Thompson for President” or anything like that, but it’s difficult to believe that Rush would say such things if he didn’t support Thompson. But in any case, he’s absolutely right. Many say Thompson won the debate more or less, and from what I’ve heard about it I’d have to agree. Reading that at HA, I thought, boy, it’s gonna be fun to see what the lefty RINO apologists have to say here, and I was not disappointed, not by a loong shot…

Conservatives all need to get realistic and they need to do so now. It doesn’t matter who you would like to see elected. It really doesn’t. You need to decide between the two electable Republicans, Romney and Giuliani. Fred just isn’t going to get the nomination. Neither is Huck or any other candidate out there right now. Put your fantasies aside and choose between Romney and Giuliani.

I’ll certainly admit those of us who vote our guns probably aren’t nearly as politically active as we should be, but if we took the attitude embodied in the above comment, I think it’s safe to say we’d have probably reached the point England’s at long before even England got there. I have very little use for total defeatists like that, and that’s putting it mildly.

Oh come on, Rush! First of all, among the five “major” candidates, three are ex-executives who have not served in significant elected legislative functions, and the other two are Senatirs, who have never served in any significant executive functions. These two senators are actually quite similar when you look at their records in office over the time that they were in office. Fred’s made a lot of headway, apparently, criticizing the others who actually do the work from the sidelines. This is the only way he can be considered more consistently conservative than any of the others.

I really can’t testify as to Thompson’s record vs. McCain’s, but I’m betting the above commenter can’t either. After all, of course, these RINO apologists are quite adept at just pulling things out of their asses and not addressing their own candidates’ blatant liberalism leftism.

I have asked about Fred’s record repeatedly. No one ever wants to have a substantive discussion about it. Usually they engage in deflection and bring up say, Romney’s record or Rudy’s record and repeat “a constant mantra” of RINO RINO RINO.

Now that I think about it, that one’s a bit of a cop-out, if you ask me. I just googled “Fred Thompson’s record” and all sorts of things came up. A sample:

Thompson hit all the right notes from a conservative voter’s perspective: Pro-life; Scalia-like judges; against gay marriage; opposes gun control; would pardon Libby; and supports the President’s surge in Iraq.

Thompson’s record in the Senate from 1995 through 2002 sustained his answers: His lifetime American Conservative Union rating is 86 (out of 100) and his lifetime Americans for Democratic Action (the liberal quotient) rating is a measly 5. Add in his presence in front of the camera as well as his folksy way of speaking, and it’s no wonder conservatives are pressing him to get into the race.

There were a few stumbling blocks, however. On immigration, Thompson had to splice some comments he’s made which make it sound as if he agrees with his friend Sen. John McCain. The very fact that he felt he needed to address that issue means Thompson well understands that the McCain position doesn’t play well with the conservative base. Wallace also asked, though didn’t press, Thompson about his previous support for campaign-finance reform – another McCain albatross.

But there are two questions Wallace didn’t ask. First, he didn’t ask Thompson about tort reform. In 1995, the GOP-led House passed a tough medical liability bill that included tort reform as part of the Contract With America. Things were all ready to go in the Senate under Majority Leader Bob Dole, when freshman – and former trial lawyer – Thompson introduced his own medical liability reform bill, sans tort reform. The bill passed and in conference committee the House’s tort reform package got completely extirpated. Conservatives were outraged and many blamed Thompson.

Second, Wallace introduced his guest by asking, “Is Fred Thompson the next Ronald Reagan?” What he didn’t bring up is that this isn’t the first time conservatives have expected big things from Thompson nor the first time he’s been compared to Reagan.

In a 1999 National Review article by Jay Nordlinger, for instance, we’re reminded that Thompson’s Senate career failed to live up to the hype. Who recalls that in 1994, before Thompson was even sworn in, Dole tapped Thompson to give the rebuttal to an economic address by Bill Clinton? The day after his five-minute retort the New York Times ran a headline “A Star is Born.” The New Republic followed with an article called “Reagan Redux.” Nordlinger wrote, “The mentioning class began to mention him as a possible vice-presidential nominee in 1996, and certainly as a contender for the top prize in 2000.”

My take: Thompson has his flaws, of course, but it would seem from the above, and looking also at Romney and Giuliani’s records at their respective previous posts, Fred Thompson is the most reliably conservative candidate with a chance to win. There are those who say that Fred got in too late and that his showing at this point is proof that he won’t go all the way, but I can’t help but agree with those who say that it’s not that Fred threw his hat in too late, but all the others jumped in too early. At least that’s what I’d like to think…but in any event, there’s a long way to go yet.We’ll see what happens, but I’m betting Rush’s kinda-sorta endorsement gives Thompson a pretty big boost in the long run, especially if Rush keeps hammering home the message he did on his show yesterday. Here’s hoping, anyway.

good stuff, Maynard…

Now playing here: Miranda Lambert, “Dry Town,” from her sophomore cd Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That whole cd is great, but I would love to have seen more songs with this sound on it.
“….I’d give a nickel for a sip or two, to wash me down, out of this dry town…”

I Had Special Visitors Today…

from none other than the frothing at the mouth Violence Policy Center!

I feel special now, it’s my first-ever confirmed visit from the gun-grabbers. I wonder if they were working on another study. 😉

Massachusetts Takes Another Swirl Around the Statist Toilet

So I just saw part of this on ABC, and just had to comment…

…the Massachusetts State House will debate legislation that would outlaw corporal punishment. If it becomes law, parents who strike any child under 18 years old will be charged with abuse or neglect, unless the action was intended to protect them from danger.

Call me crazy, but I’d say that if kids were spanked more when they were young and impressionable, as part of a sustained effort to teach them right and wrong, maybe there wouldn’t be such a problem with the violence in the inner cities that the Northeastern nanny-statists are always raising hell about. First they blame the guns, and now they practically want to make against the law one of the most effective methods to tackle the problem at the root! But that’s just what I think. I got my hide tanned here and there when I was little but was not forever traumatized by it, nor do I first resort to violence to solve a problem, as I suppose the people might think who want to outlaw corporal punishment.
And, of course, the authorities in Massachusetts obviously haven’t stopped to ponder the unintended consequences of such a law — namely, the thugs-in-training who wants to get their parents in trouble with the authorities, this law gives them a sure-fire mechanism for doing so. It’d be quite interesting to see how many parents were punished for violating that law when they hadn’t actually done so. It’d be the kid’s word against the parent’s, and just who do you think the Mass. authorities would believe? My money’s on the thugs-in-training. Call the mentality that leads to laws such as this even being proposed just one more reason I am quite glad I don’t live anywhere near the land of the Kennedys.

Nailing Giuliani to the Wall

Mary Matalin, on Meet the Press a couple of days ago, nailed Rudolph Giuliani’s leftist authoritarian arse to the wall, and it was a thing of beauty (emphasis mine — ed.):

…the gun culture, it’s not a gun culture, it’s a mainstream culture. It’s emblematic of a really important element of the conservative psyche. They’re hunters, they’re sportsmen, it’s a lifestyle thing. They’re Constitutionalists. And it wasn’t that Rudy was just for gun control. He was hostile to gun owners and hostile to the Second Amendment. He’s the only mayor that sued gun companies. He blamed five Southern states for the troubles that New York was having with guns. He was the only mayor who bragged about running around the country in support of Clinton’s gun control.

I just don’t think it can be put any more succinctly than that. And I would love for someone to use that quote and ask him point blank why in the hell we should trust him not to come after us and our culture the way he did in New York City.
That particular nugget I discovered at Hot Air, in a thread about Mitt Romney linking Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani to a so-called “New York State of Mind.” Riiiight. As if the “Massachusetts State of Mind” isn’t its identical twin. And the pot sayeth unto the kettle, “thou art black!”
Speaking of nailing Giuliani to the wall, Fred Thompson did a masterful job of it last week as well:

Fred Thompson said Friday while visiting a New Hampshire gun store that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani should stop bringing up the Big Apple on the campaign trail and criticized him for consistently supporting gun control legislation. Thompson’s popularity in early-voting New Hampshire has sunk rapidly in recent weeks, but his visit to Skip’s Gun and Sport Shop to trumpet second-amendment rights could be geared toward libertarian-leaning primary voters in the state.
And the usually laid-back Thompson aimed his tough talk straight at the Republican frontrunner.
“(Giuliani) simply supported just about every gun control legislation that came down the pike. And I just disagree with him on that…. over the years and he’s been very outspoken about it. Of course he’s not outspoken about it anymore,” Thompson told reporters with a smile. “It’s a major differentiation. He relates everything to New York City … Well, New York City is not emblematic of the rest of the country.

Giuliani spokesperson Katie Levinson said in response, “Coming from a man who lives in the Beltway, who is a Washington insider and lobbyist and who played the role Rudy Giuliani actually lived on a television series, I am not sure what to make of the senator’s comments, except to say results are results.“
That’s roughly translated into plainspoken American English as, “My boss got his arse nailed to the wall and I ain’t got jack to counter it, so I’ll just toss out Pre-Written Attack Response No. 2. Yeah, I know it’s crap, but it’s all I got, sorry.”

I Love Rock’n’Roll

“…so come and take your time and dance with me…yeeooow!”
Seems like that’s the one Joan Jett song that gets played on the ’80s station in Houston more than anything else, but there is this one other song that was a big hit for her…

“I think of you every night and day, you took my heart, and you took my pride awayyayayay…”
For the uninitiated, that’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You.” That one and “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” are the only two songs from her that I’ve ever heard, but I love them both. I think “I Hate Myself For Loving You” was one of the best songs to come out of the ’80s, and I hated, hated to see NBC and Faith Hill make a damned commercial jingle out of it. I don’t know if it merits quite the same level of outrage as the Old El Paso Co. butchering Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” in an attempt to sell some “crappy burrito boxed dinner,” as Country Standard Time’s Robert Loy so artfully put it a few years back, but it comes pretty close. Come to think of it, I think he’s got the right idea:

Maybe we should thank the censors and the pitchmen too lazy and blasphemous to write their own jingles. They certainly have turned us on to some great music and art.

Or maybe we should hang them.

Call me crazy, but I think some songs just deserve better than to be twisted into a jingle to sell something. “El Paso” and “I Hate Myself For Loving You” are just a couple of them. Even if they’re on vastly different levels.

Might wanna bring more gun there, Sparky…

More interesting referrals from the Site Meter: “Ammo to stop bears Rugar (sic) P90“.
I’ve never been in bear country, but from everything I’ve read, as far as a sidearm goes you’d need at the very least a hot-loaded 10mm, and even that might not cut it in brown bear or grizzly bear country. Me, I’d be taking some sort of big-bore revolver, .41 or .44 Magnum, loaded as hot as I could stand it. But if you absolutely must have an autoloader to stop a bear, a 1911 converted to shoot .460 Rowland looks like it would be pretty hard to beat, though I wouldn’t take anything smaller than a Govt. model as far as that particular cartridge goes. Clark doesn’t make a conversion kit for the Ruger P90, but I think it’d be interesting to see how it would hold up with the Ruger’s aluminum frame.
On a slightly different note, vis-a-vis the 1911 chambered in more powerful cartridges, one of those linked stories said the Kimber 1911 with the .460 conversion kit held up pretty well. That makes me feel a little better about shooting hot loads in my Kimber and Dan Wesson, although I still probably would be wise to invest in stiffer springs and shock buffers for them.

Separation?

Interesting referral to my humble corner of the Web a couple of days ago, from Barrington, Illinois: google search, “will texas separate if court bans handguns“.
I don’t know if it’d ever come down to secession if the court actually opened the door to any kind of broad ban like a ban on defensive sidearms, but I’d like to think Texas would go all the way and separate from the United States if it came down to that. I am a proud American, but I fully believe that if the people in charge actually decided that a ban and/or confiscation of any more types of guns was in the best interest of the country, then there would be little if any question in my mind that the grand American experiment either had failed or was well on its way to failing and then would be as good a time as ever for Texas to opt out and try it again on our own. It’s bad enough that we have the ban on imports and the de facto ban on full-autos. Maybe it’s a radical suggestion, but something tells me in the end it would be a lot more appealing — read that as less bloody — if it ever came down to bans and confiscations.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see several other states follow suit, too. I hope it doesn’t come to that, and I am thinking it won’t — but again, I wouldn’t be the least bit afraid of separating and becoming our own country. I think the Founding Fathers would indeed encourage such a move, as it would be more or less upholding the things they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to more than 230 years ago.

Run That By Me One More Time?

Allahpundit on Heller going to the next level, at Hot Air:

Ironically, the GOP losing this case would be a huge boon to gun-grabber Rudy, assuming he’s the nominee, since it would sharpen the focus on his promise to appoint conservatives like Scalia and Thomas, who share Rudy’s own, ahem, originalist philosophy.

That’s assuming, of course, that Giuliani’s not letting his mouth write a check his ass won’t cash if he actually makes it to the Oval Office, but really that’s neither here nor there for purposes of this post. I don’t see how anyone could come to the conclusion the gun issue being catapulted into the national consciousness is going to help Giuliani in any way with any gun owner who’s aware of his record in New York City. Promises be damned, Giuliani’s record in New York City speaks for itself, and with the issue thrown back in the spotlight in such a high-profile manner the one of the only ways this could help Giuliani is if the Republican bloggers can manage to pull the wool over the eyes of the GOP base. You’ll note I didn’t call them conservative, and there’s a reason for that. They themselves might well be conservative, but for all the advocacy of Giuliani they might as well be casting their lot in with the Democrats because when you look at Giuliani’s record, at least on the gun issue, he’s no better than any of the Democrats. He supported every one of the gun control initiatives the Clintons got through or were going to try to get through Congress — the Brady Bill, the AWB, licensing, registration, the whole gun-control enchilada. And there’s absolutely no reason, at least as far as I can see, to believe he’s renounced any of that. Another one of the only ways this could help him is if certain people — yes, Wayne LaPierre, I’m talkin’ to you! — dropped the ball and didn’t call attention to Giuliani’s record, choosing instead to focus on the Democrats’ shortcomings. As far as that goes, I hope the NRA shows it at least has some integrity and gets busy exposing the potential weaknesses on the GOP side of the aisle as well, but we’ll see.

Heller v. District of Columbia Goes to Supreme Court

From this morning’s Chron…

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns violates the Constitution, putting the justices at the center of the controversy over the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in nearly 70 years.

The court’s decision could have broad implications for gun-control measures locally and across the country, and will raise a hot political issue just in time for the 2008 elections.

The court will hear the case after the first of the year. A decision likely would come before it adjourns at the end of June.

For years, legal scholars, historians and grammarians have debated the meaning of the amendment because of its enigmatic wording and odd punctuation:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Yes, it has been debated, but that debate has arisen for one reason — socialist do-gooders who pull interpretations of the Constitution out of their fourth point of contact. If there’s any hope for our Constitutional Republic, this debate will be settled once and for all in favor of individual rights and the socialist nanny-state would-be totalitarians will no longer be able to throw the American people’s natural rights to the wolves just because they think it makes for good social policy. I’d bet we have at least four solid votes in Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Thomas, but then there’s Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens on the other side. I’m betting it’s probably going to end up 5-4 one way or the other, as I don’t really know enough about Justice Anthony Kennedy’s voting record to comment. But it should be fun to see what happens in the nation’s gun stores during the next 9 months or so, as Heller’s case is debated and voted on. What I would love to have seen in the Post’s write-up of this is Gura & Possessky’s response to D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer’s ludicrous comment that “Whatever right the Second Amendment guarantees, it does not require the District to stand by while its citizens die” (Page 29 of their response to D.C.’s petition for certiorari):

Yet the city consistently fights to secure its right to stand by while its citizens are victimized by crime. For example, the city has successfully defended its right to “stand by while its citizens” are raped, kidnapped from their homes, and further abused. Warren 30 v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). The city has likewise successfully defended its right to “stand by” in the face of the worst urban rioting in our nation’s history. Westminster Investing Co. v. G.C. Murphy Co., 434 F.2d 521 (D.C. Cir. 1970).
The city has even defended its right to “stand by while its citizens die” when the perpetrator is a police officer. Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. 1983) (en banc). Indeed, the city has asserted its right to “stand by while its citizens die” in the course of volunteering their assistance to the police.

But I guess that would have too balanced for the Washington Post and their not-so-hidden anti-gun agenda. In any event, I couldnt have said it much better than Joe Lemire at Cold Fury did:

…This is our birthright, and something sixteen generations of my family have defended. We don’t much care what you overpaid, supposedly “public servants” in D.C. think of that.
But if the Supreme Court wants to pretend that “shall not be infringed” doesn’t mean exactly what it says, us Carolina boys will be glad to re-enact the burning of D.C. for ya. I’m pretty sure the decendants of the Green Mountain boys will want to help, too, and we might even find some of Sam’s kin with an itch to set you straight. There’s plenty of us decended from the founders still around, you know. And we have a message for you:

From our cold, dead hands, motherfuckers.

A-yep. Or, as my Texican brethren told their would-be Mexican overlords back in 1835 at Gonzales…

“Come and Take It.”