In a moving, pointed and rare response to a question about the Terri Schiavo controversy, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee Monday afternoon described details of the death of his own daughter, Elizabeth “Betsy” Thompson Panici, and said that neither federal nor local governments should play any role in making a family’s end-of-life decisions……
GOP hopeful Thompson said that “making this into a political football is something that I don’t welcome, and this will probably be the last time I ever address it. It should be decided by the family. The federal government — and the state government too, except for the court system — should stay out of these matters, as far as I’m concerned.”
Betsy Panici died in January 2002 at the age of 38 from a brain injury following cardiac arrest after what was deemed an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.
On one hand, I feel bad for him. On the other hand, the right to an abortion is a moral walk in the park compared to end of life issues, but he’ll happily throw women under the bus to get votes. The decision to let go of an actual person, not a potential one, is far more sticky and troublesome, but I do fundamentally agree with Thompson that it’s a private matter.
He’s underestimating how much of the Republican party is fueled by a bunch of busybodies that just know that they are the final moral arbiters on other people’s lives, and they don’t need to be bothered with things like facts or understanding before declaring other people unfit to make the most private decisions about their lives. In other words, he’s toast.
27 Responses to “Fred Thompson has a limit on pandering”
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He *has* a limit on pandering! I’m gobsmacked. I didn’t think any of the Clown Car had it in them. Unless Rudi’s “almost not anti-choice by comparison and might admit to non-homophobia if forced” counts.
I’m actually relieved to see a bit of actual humanity break through. The contortions these guys put themselves through is insane. Good to know there’s some limit, though the message here is clearly that these issues are only valid if he’s had personal experience with them.
“I’m actually relieved to see a bit of actual humanity break through.”
In the modern Reichwing, “humanity” = weakness…
That’s why all of the Rethug candidates have been crawling all over each to show how inhumane they are…
Humanity. Exactly. First the “Church?” thing and now this. Reality creeping through the cracks in the morality facade can’t ever be a bad thing - and it just might pull in some of the Demublicans who are in blue states only because blue is the conformist thing to do in blue states.
If it comes down to it, I won’t vote for him. But I’m glad to see this bit of moral honesty, nonetheless.
I guess that’s one of the problems with enforcing a stupid party-wide pander and using all your instruments of media control to make your base love it. If it becomes a litmus test, it ends up hurting reasonable people on your side who come along later and don’t want to play the game.
It’s also possible that Thompson is saying this in part because he realizes that he’s already lost the game of winning over the religious right.
That’s from Political Wire a month ago. It’s at that moment that I realized that Thompson was really in trouble — the whole raison d’etre of his candidacy was that he’d unite the fundy base who didn’t trust Rudy or Romney or McCain. Instead, the fundy types seem to be splitting between Huckabee (former Baptist minister, but has no money) and Romney (whose past views they ignore, seeing him as a well-funded Giuliani-killer). We’ll see how this goes.
You’d think that it would give these people pause that they all share the same strange un-compassionate positions, with the exceptions of the people in the group that have ACTUAL experience with the subject.
McCain is the one against torture, because he was tortured.
Thompson is against interfering with end of life issues because he has dealt with it directly.
What is it in the right-wing brain that makes it so impossible for them to have any compassion relating to something that they have not DIRECTLY experienced? I mean, I have never had an unplanned pregnancy, but it is not that hard for me to imagine that it is tough, and that people who are in that place deserve compassion. Too bad none of these guys will never get knocked up. If they did they might see the light.
Tangentially–I wonder what Dobson will do when he’s run through all the GOP candidates for 2008 and found all of them falling short? I’m quite curious to see, in fact.
Nenya, one of two things will happen, depending on the likelihood of a Democratic victory as November ‘08 looms.
If the race is close, Dobson and the Thumpers will attach themselves (promising votes) to the Republican candidate in return for him divesting himself of any remaining vestiges of individual thought and independence (if there are any left by that time anyway). If the Rethug wins, they will claim total credit. If he loses, they will claim he wasn’t sincere enough in his support of wingnut causes.
If the Democrat is the likely winner, they will keep their powder dry, shoot barbs at the Democratic administration for the next 4-years, and groom their golden boy for 2012…
In the mean time - the Dobsonites will grab all the money from the rubes they can, while using the specter of Hillary or Obama as a catalyst for increasing wingnut fear…
On a somewhat related note. (From The Onion.)
I’m not convinced Thompson’s stance will hurt him with very many voters, even in the GOP. Watching a loved one suffer against his or her will is a life-transforming circumstance, regardless of ideology.
I don’t think that the fundies will ever support the right to die, but I do think that many of them do support leaving end of life decisions in the hands of family members. I think that’s why the Christian Taliban had to demonize Michael Schaivo so harshly. If he had been seen as a decent human being, most of their followers would have sat on their hands in this fight.
It also is useful to note that the Christian Taliban isn’t making this one of their feature issues now.
No, no, no.
Hospitalized adults are smelly and drained of phantasmagorial potential… all too human. Who cares about them. What about the baaaaaabies?
Please do tell, what’s the difference?
Be interesting to see if Fred flip-flops on this. It appears he had a misguided momment of honesty.
It’s still early. Fred’s countring on courting the Southern vote as well as those sypathetic to the confederacy and the klan. If that’s not enough and he feels he needs the evangelicals too, he might start tossing them a few bones.
Be interesting to see just how relevant Dobson is in all of this. Just who made him King-maker anyway? Who gave him last word on if a candidate is Jesusy enough for America?
Be interesting to see just how relevant Dobson is in all of this. Just who made him King-maker anyway? Who gave him last word on if a candidate is Jesusy enough for America?
He brought all the presidential candidates into the shower with him and showed them his grown-up man penis.
I guess Thompson failed to express sufficient impressed noises or something.
::: sigh :::
This is exactly why protecting rights and resources to stay neutrally accessible is so important. I wish more people would understand that, including up and coming Dem consultants who have ridiculous visions of a party moonwalking into power were it not for irritating life decisions crapola.
Not surprising that Thompson’s family’s circumstances are special and nuanced, but for others, he’d throw some doctors and patients in jail. Yep, impose jail sentences ahead of time.
To quote Law & Order, chung chung!
Molly, NYC
One more of a million reasons to love The Onion…
I almost peed my pants.
It’s getting really hard not to like this guy. Well, ok, to respect some of the things he’s gone out on a limb to say. Could it be he’s actually found out that courting moderates works to garner independent votes? Lookout, semi-intelligent Republican!
Jeb Bush said some things like this when it was happening, a lot of Floridians hated his guts for it. However, it did pave the way for Charlie Crist to express the same sentiments during his campaign and the voters swallowed it with minimal wincing. Thompson might get hosed for this, but he’ll probably pave the way for whoever does get nominated to go down that road unmolested. The Overton window moves in the vague direction of common sense, the religious fringe groups look more loony than they ever have, everyone reaps a tiny benefit.
Too bad Thompson is trying to win something and not move the window of debate.
I dunno, in my wildest dreams (or darkest nightmares) it would be interetsing to see Fred Thompson go up against Dennis Kucinich in the general election on the platform of whose wife is hotter…? Then I reach for the gin.
As to the topic at hand, statements like this make me more pissed off, rather than less. Like you said, Amanda, the choice to an abortion is a moral walk in the park compared to the choice to end life support. Yet there no allowance for this because droopy dog won’t ever be confronted with this particular hardship himself.
If something like going through a difficult end-of-life decision can’t raise your awareness about how other people might face difficult decisions and give you a little empathy, then your head is so far up your ass your eyes are getting burned by your stomach acid.
So does anyone else see both parties “triangulating” away the chance for real change in this election?
It seems like the GOP has a bunch of loonies out there that fit into the same pattern we’ve seen before — authoritarian ex-office holders, religious wackos, and an actor — almost as if to guarantee that the various pieces of their base all have someone to look to at the moment. And the same with the Dems: a “fringe” progressive, a woman, a black man, and a couple of centrist white men. And I think the strategy in both is to stage the primaries such that it is a toss-up all the way to the conventions, and then settle on candidates that are near the center while hoping that the other party goes for their base instead.
It seems like the GOP is planning to pull out a Bob Dole-type right-leaning “centrist” at the last minute and hoping to go up against Clinton or Obama, while the DNC is planning on an Edwards/Dodd ticket and hoping to run against Giuliani or Romney. That would pit the standard stereotypes against each other without the risk of handing actual power to another real progressive like LBJ or real wacko like GWB.
“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold…”
Wait, McCain-Feingold is a big issue for the Religious Right? Why in hell would they care about that? That’s not about fetuses or icky man-love or anything like that.
Seriously - campaign finance is a big issue? Why?
Who’s coordinating all that, cpp? Also, I was under the impression Clinton was more centrist than either Edwards or Dodd.
Of all the things Dobson would throw Thompson under the bus before, I’m not sure whether to be amazed that it ISN’T Fred’s having a shotgun wedding at age 17 and his first child 7 months later.
ace, why? Conservatives like shotgun weddings, a.k.a. “making an honest woman of her.”
Premarital schtupping is only a problem for women, in conservative circles. It’s expected of men, as long as any resulting pregnancies are dealt with by marriages.
Aman is right — Edwards and Dodd are a lot more progressive than Clinton. On foreign policy, both Edwards and Dodd oppose Clinton’s vote in favor of Lieberman-Kyl, which promotes war with Iran. On domestic policy, you can compare their advisors to Hillary’s top advisor Mark Penn who runs a PR firm that helps companies bust unions and gives more money to Republicans than Democrats.
Edwards’ advisors are especially impressive on domestic issues — the connection between his people and organized labor is very tight, and he hired a couple key staffers right out of the Wake Up Wal-Mart campaign.
That’s why I’m not sure *whether* to be amazed–if more in the sense that they have no problem judging the morals of others, but not their own.
GotDaFeevah, that’s a good observation. As Ben Franklin said, “Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other.”
Grammar RWA: The right to die also includes physician assisted suicide, something which is perfectly reasonable. There are a significant number of people who support allowing nature to take its course but won’t allow help to stop people from suffering.
The distinction is not sensible to me, but it is to a lot of people.
Seriously - campaign finance is a big issue? Why?
Because money=speech, and money is one thing the Dobsons of this country have plenty of. Campaign finance reform directly threatens their power.
Cue libertarian whining about nanny-staters in 3… 2… 1…