The Democrats are Worried About Fred (Bump And Addendum)

Joyner at OTB:

The big news overnight is the claim by a pro abortion group that it hired Fred Thompson to lobby the first President Bush to soften his stance on a gag rule.
Michael Finnegan broke the story for the LAT (although not before being scooped by The American Spectator):

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, 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.

His task was to urge the administration of President George H. W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that received federal money, according to the records and to people who worked on the matter.

[…]

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

[…]

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 talked to him while he was doing it, and I talked to [DeSarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work that he was doing for her organization,” said Barnes. “I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is fact.”

DeSarno said that Thompson, after being hired, reported to her that he had held multiple conversations about the abortion rule with Sununu, who was then the White House chief of staff and the president’s point man on the rule. Thompson kept her updated on his progress in telephone conversations and over meals at Washington restaurants, including dinner at Galileo and lunch at the Monocle, she said. At one of the meals, she recalled, Thompson told her that Sununu had just given him tickets for a VIP tour of the White House for a Thompson son and his wife. “It would be an odd thing for me to construct that thing out of whole cloth,” DeSarno said. “It happened, and I think it’s quite astonishing they’re denying it.”

Sununu said in a telephone interview: “I don’t recall him ever lobbying me on that at all. I don’t think that ever happened. In fact, I know that never happened.” He added that he had “absolutely no idea” whether Thompson had met with anybody else at the White House, but said it would have been a waste of time, given the president’s opposition to abortion rights.

In response to Sununu’s denial, DeSarno said Thompson “owes NFPRHA a bunch of money” if he never talked to Sununu as he said he had.

To which James adds a comment:

Thompson was a hired gun making a living lobbying Republicans. Trying to convince Sununu to get Bush to soften his stance on a gag rule would not seem to contradict his stated political philosophy and would only offend the most doctrinaire social conservative.

True.  And that they’ll drag this one out of the woodpile tells me that they are downright desperate to get something … anything on the man.  They are exerting efforts on Thomson that none of the declared candidates have gotten.  They’re worried. Anything that worries the democrats so is worth my support.

Addendum: (Bit)

Captain Ed, under a post entitled Someone Must Be Very Worried (Yeah, I know… Great minds really DO think alike…) notes that’s not all that’s going on from the ‘attack Fred” crowd…

Fresh on the heels of the Los Angeles Times attack on Fred Thompson’s lobbying, the New York Times lowers the bar by attacking Fred Thompson’s wife. Calling Fred “grandfatherly” and Jeri Kehn Thompson a “trophy wife”, the Gray Lady wonders whether America can deal with a May-December romance in the White House:

AS the election of 2008 approaches with its cast of contenders who bring unprecedented diversity to the quest for the White House, the voting public has been called on to ponder several questions: Is America ready for a woman to be president? What about a black man? A Mormon?Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is spurring debate in Internet chat rooms, on cable television and on talk radio: Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?

The question may seem sexist, even crass, but serious people — as well as Mr. Thompson’s supporters — have been wrestling with the public reaction to Jeri Kehn Thompson, whose youthfulness, permanent tan and bleached blond hair present a contrast to the 64-year-old man who hopes to win the hearts of the conservative core of the Republican party. Will the so-called values voters accept this union?

Mr. Thompson, who needs the support of early primary voters, is expected to formally announce his candidacy any day now. Meanwhile, much of the brouhaha around Mrs. Thompson, 40, is being stirred by photos of her in form-fitting gowns circulating on the Internet.

Ed Comments, in part:

Sexist?  Yes.  Crass?  Definitely.  Ridiculous?  You bet.

I’m touched, really, by the concern that Susan Saulny and the Paper of Record show for “values voters”, a group that normally received little but scorn and ridicule from Pinch’s crew. However, these people are not likely to have an issue with a man who spent seventeen years between marriages before marrying a woman in her mid-30s. Thompson’s ex-wife speaks well of him, his children seem very well-adjusted, and his current wife is an intelligent and well-spoken woman who will be an asset to his campaign.

Now let’s talk about the form-fitting gowns. Or let’s not. The clear implication is that Jeri Kehn is some sort of a trollop who married for power on the basis of her beauty, which is ridiculous. Saulny faults the Thompsons for not officially distributing her resume, but anyone with access to Google knows that Mrs. Thompson worked as an attorney and media consultant in DC, as well as a staffer at the RNC and on the Senate Republican Caucus. She’s no bubble-headed bleach blonde, but someone with her own record of accomplishment — even if the New York Times and Susan Saulny apparently can’t find it with both hands and a flashlight.

…

Is this the level to which the New York Times will stoop for the rest of the political campaign? All it indicates to me is that Pinch Sulzberger and his staff seem very worried about a Thompson campaign, so worried that they have already started attacking Fred’s family rather than discuss his policy stands, contained in essays that he has published for months at Townhall and ABC. The caliber of these attacks show the quality of the opposition to Fred, and also give Fred some indirect credibility, as his opponents don’t appear to have confidence that they can beat him on the issues.

Exactly so, Ed. It smacks to me of desperation of the first order. The left… and of course the Times, the House Organ of the left, has identified Fred Thompson as the most serious threat to their power since Reagan… and know he must be stopped. The desperation gets even worse in light of the 14% approval ratings the Democrats have in Congress just now. But as to your question, is this going to be the level the Times operates at, the answer is no.  It can only get worse as the desperation level increases.
Watch for it.