Is there a new word coming?
Ryan Sager discovers that Fred Thompson had taken different positions on immigration than his current one. In April of 2006 and March of 2007, he firmly was to the left of the current bill. For example, he opposed the fence:
that’s a technical problem. In this day and age, I would not think you would have to use bricks and mortar to get that job done. But we ought to do everything that we can to get it done to the extent that we can
And argued that you needed to let people stay:
I mean, there’s really no good solution. So what do you do? You have to start over. Well, I’m concerned about the next 12 million or 20 million. So that’s why enforcement, and enforcement at the border, has to be primary.
So every candidate, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson all have expressed support for the old McCain-Kennedy bill. Now, only John McCain stands by the new bill.
And this matters. Jim Geraghty argues that it does not and says:
The base doesn’t care if somebody whose previous stance was “hooray for illegals” suddenly changes his opinion; they want somebody to stop the bill! If Ted Kennedy suddenly was hit on the head, had a total personality inversion, and started leading the fight against this bill and killed it, the conservative base would say, "You know, there was always something I liked about that hard-drinking sonofagun."
But this clearly isn’t right. There is no question that the status quo involves the government not implementing the law. If a candidate used to support "amnesty", then flip-flopped to oppose this bill, and the bill is stopped… What makes you think that they would actually enforce the law as president? They essentially lied once. What is to stop them from reverting to their conscience rather than political pressure? Especially when president after president has proved susceptible to the political pressure from business and labor to maintain the status quo?
11 Comments
karasoth · May 21, 2007 at 4:41 AM
I think you missed Fred’s statement. Here is the Meat
–>”We should scrap this bill and the whole debate until we can convince the American people that we have secured the borders or at least have made great headway.”
eye · May 21, 2007 at 6:36 AM
I didn’t miss his statement. But 2 months ago, he was saying the opposite.
karasoth · May 21, 2007 at 3:49 PM
No my point is (and I believe Fred’s is) given the climate today with the distrust and lack of faith the people have in their government passing this bill would be harmful.
eye · May 21, 2007 at 3:52 PM
So what was different 2 months ago when Fred was for a McCain-Kennedy style bill?
karasoth · May 22, 2007 at 6:33 AM
It was more popular and their were less cases getting featured in the news of how broke the system is and how the government has facilitated it.
during the 2 months the NYTs iirc covered a story about why the security provisions of the 86 amnesty went to pot.
you have lou dobbs, bloggers, and a host of others drumming the issue.
2 months ago the issue had more public confidence then it does at this point
eye · May 22, 2007 at 7:31 AM
And no one was talking about information.
If Fred Thompson’s opinion are driven by what Lou Dobbs says, he is not qualified to be President,
karasoth · May 22, 2007 at 9:25 AM
No but Fred Thompson, if he wants to be president, has to understand a lot of people will be directed by the like of Lou Dobbs. and that if people do not have confidence in a law or in the government it will lead to far more problems.
which was his point. During those two months he came to realize that their is a serious confidence gap that the government needs to mend before it does anything.
and as Fred has poked into more events as part of his presidential run its very likely he has gotten a sense of the problem of lack of confidence in the government that he didn’t have before
eye · May 22, 2007 at 9:41 AM
Fred’s pandering. Face it.
karasoth · May 22, 2007 at 9:57 AM
Again you notice he isn’t saying in any of his statements “What I believed before… well not so much now.” he is phrasing it in the terms I am talking about. What Fred is saying we can’t move forward as a country and deal with this until real people feel this isn’t going to give way to a new amnesty in 2026
eyeon08.com » Cheap Date Conservatives · October 26, 2007 at 5:39 PM
[…] McCain’s assessment of the efficacy of the fence was confirmed by a commentator and seeming conservative hero: that’s a technical problem. In this day and age, I would not think you would have to use bricks and mortar to get that job done. But we ought to do everything that we can to get it done to the extent that we can […]
eyeon08.com » Romney’s IA immigration piece and his strange cynicism · November 30, 2007 at 6:44 PM
[…] It is undeniable that Mitt Romney flip-flopped on a whole bunch of things. And a number of people are comfortable with that. What I find so cynical about Romney is that he attacks people for formerly holding positions that he formerly held. Again, "flip-flopping for me, but not for thee." Thompson, especially, no longer holds the views that he was advocating back in the day. Huckabee has shifted to the right, something that I have blasted him on. […]
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