The more Fred Thompson speaks the more I like what he has to say. I have liked him in the movies before the Senate, I liked him when he was in the Senate and I liked him when he was on Law & Order. I really think he has a real good chance of shaking off the blah-feeling that has been cast upon the Republican Party in recent years. Not so much because of the Administration but more so by the ineffective leadership in the lower and higher houses of congress. Of course the sorry excuse for leadership that is the democrat party has played it’s part as well.
So David S. Broder has spent some time with Fred and has written about some of it.
“There’s no reason for me to run just to be president,” he said.
“I don’t desire the emoluments of the office. I don’t want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there — different, more far-reaching ideas — that is worth doing.” Thompson, like many of the others running, has caught a strong whiff of the public disillusionment with both parties in Washington — and the partisanship that has infected Congress, helping to speed his own departure from the Senate.
But he says he thinks that the public is looking for a different kind of leadership. “I think a president could go to the American people and say, ‘Here’s what we need to be doing. and I’m willing to go half-way.’ Now you have to make them (the opposition) go half-way.” The approach Thompson says he’s contemplating is one that will step on many sensitive political toes. When he says “we’re getting a free ride” fighting a necessary war in Iraq with an undersized military establishment, “wearing out our people and equipment,” it sounds like a criticism of the president and the Pentagon.
I for one will be supporting Thompson’s bid for the White House, because I am one of those in the public looking for a different kind of leadership.
h/t: Mark A. Kilmer
Hey Mark, sorry about being out of touch for so long. Sorry for never following through on Rather Gate, but I am just now getting back to blogging after getting moved and settled in to my new home. Yes it has been over a year now, but that got me out of the grove that I am finally back in. Switching over to Word Press sure has made that easier as well.