Tipping off Nixon's attorney that the Watergate committee was aware of the tapes was a supremely unethical thing for Thompson to do as a lawyer. Effectively, Thompson was acting as a spy and a saboteur, and was trying to help Nixon to avoid answering to Congress. And one wonders if this is when the infamous 18 minute gap was made in the White House recordings.

Thompson's role as the organizer of Scooter Libby's defense fund also smells bad. But it definately speaks to his loyalties, and his insider status with the faction that currently occupy the White House.

I suspect that Thompson's moderate words and soothing public persona are a cover for a different and more disturbing agenda -- such as continuing the status quo.

-- Bokonon

You're either a complete virgin or I don't know what.

I have never previously heard of anybody suggesting that attorney's working in Congress were anything but information sources for whatever power struggles are underway. Within the Congress or the Executive. The Congress is a seething snakepit of information and disinformation. Power in Congress derives from control and framing of information.

Or maybe I'm just super connected way out here in podunkville.

And no, that's not a defense of Thompson. I have no intention of supporting him or any other Demopublican. But you infer this thing about Thompson is somehow unique to him. What would be unique would be a staffer who doesn't play games with information.

B

Finally, you open your mind to ideas other than your own.

........ahh.........that was (and continues to be) my idea..........it was my sarcastic reply that you apparently missed..........

I have come to expect nothing else.

Well, that's excellent. Then, I'll never fail to meet your expectations.

JPost.com Updated Jul. 9, 2007 3:09
View from America: Pandering instead of policy
By JONATHAN S. TOBIN

If there were any doubts about the fact that one-time Tennessee senator and actor Fred Thompson was about to run for the Republican nomination for president, it was not due to his recent tiff with filmmaker Michael Moore or his appearances on Fox News and various other venues.
It was the fact that he used a radio commentary spot, the text of which was subsequently published in the on-line version of National Review magazine, to articulate his stout support for Israeli counterattacks against Palestinian missile attacks on the city of Sderot, his firm opposition to Hamas and his skepticism about the Palestinian desire for peace.
Good for Thompson for stating such views. But we are all entitled to notice that articulating these positions (which make him hardly unique among presidential contenders) is a function more of his desire to win support from friends of Israel for his presidential ambitions than anything else.
After all, who remembers Thompson ever taking a leadership position on support for Israel during his eight years in the Senate? Not that he was ever counted among Zion's foes, but there's something about having your name mentioned as a possible presidential candidate that seems to bring out Zionists in the most unlikely places.
There are many questions yet to be answered about Thompson's possible run. But his desire for Jewish support and contributions for his campaign is not in doubt.
ELECTION-YEAR conversions are nothing new. Who can forget Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.), never previously identified as a friend of Israel, who sought to bolster the appeal of his doomed presidential campaign in 1996 by pushing through legislation to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? The odds of the embassy actually being moved were even lower than Dole's chances of beating Bill Clinton that November. So, too, were the chances that many Jews would take the bait and back him.
But as the desperate search for campaign dollars gets into full swing, it is worthwhile pondering what exactly it is that friends of Israel should be asking the many men and one woman who stand a chance of actually taking the oath of office on January 21, 2009.
BEFORE ANSWERING that question, it should be stipulated that the majority of Jews will never vote for a candidate based on his or her stance on Israel. Most of us are rigidly partisan, with Jewish loyalty to the Democratic Party being second only to that of African-Americans. Anyone who discounts either the loyalty of most Jews to the Democrats, and thus their hostility especially to religious conservatives in the GOP, hasn't been paying attention over the last 20 years.
But to recognize this fact is not to discount the possibility that any candidate can win or lose critical campaign funding, as well as eventually some votes, by their stands on Middle East issues.
On Israel itself, outside of fringe candidates like the wacky right-wing libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and the leftist Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), there isn't too much daylight between the candidates on support for Israel's right of self-defense, as well as on their disdain for Hamas. DEMOCRATS have uniformly scorned the Bush administration for its lack of "engagement" in the process. Dovish groups like the Israel Policy Forum have echoed that theme. But while bashing Bush is good politics at the moment, nobody in either party can point to what could actually be accomplished with a repeat of the kind of engagement in the peace process that characterized the Clinton administration.

No amount of encouragement from Washington is going to change the corrupt and violent nature of Fatah. And despite US help, Fatah's forces were easily routed by Hamas in Gaza. No one - including Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed more aid for Fatah - should expect either half of the Palestinian political spectrum to do what needs to be done to end terrorism or begin to build a rational state.

ANOTHER POINT on which there is seeming consensus is opposition to the Iranian drive to acquire nuclear weapons. Both Democrats and Republicans have addressed the dangers of such a development and expressed support for a strong policy seeking to head it off.
But the tricky part is not to say you don't want Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to have his finger on a nuclear button, but how to make sure it doesn't happen.
Most Republicans have been eager to say that they won't take the military option off the table. Is such a threat credible? That's uncertain given both the military situation in Iraq and the inherent difficulties of such an operation under even the most ideal circumstances.
Democrats have wavered on that point (John Edwards has come down, at times, on both sides of the question), but given the determinedly anti-war stands of all the Democrats, it isn't clear how any of them can win Democratic primary votes while contemplating using force against Iran.
And that, like the rest of the rhetoric about fighting the war on Islamist terrorism, is the crux of both parties' problems in coping with the Middle East.
It is easy for all of them to wave the flag of devotion for Israel. And it is just as easy for candidates of either party to criticize the conduct of the war in Iraq.
But the crucial question facing the eventual winner in November 2008 is what they are going to do about Iran.
FOR NOW, like Bush, they can all pray the Europeans and Russia will unite around a tough sanctions protocol that will turn the tide in Teheran. They can also hope that internal divisions in Iran will convince the mullahs who hold the power behind Ahmadinejad that they must turn back from a policy of confrontation.
But if none of that works, and the day dawns - in the next president's term - when Iran will actually have the nuclear capability to destroy Israel (and threaten the West), then we must ask what these would-be presidents would actually do.
Will any of them have the mettle to face up to the challenge and act to forestall catastrophe? Or will they weakly sit back and wait for futile diplomacy to defuse a crisis that is already out of control?
It is on that point - and not the usual pandering to pro-Israel sentiment - that friends of the Jewish state should judge the candidates. Heaven help us all if we choose incorrectly.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Say again...? Ahhh, there we go...I love cartoons

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Actually, Bot, I am attorney, and I used to work on Capitol Hill. So I know a thing or two about Congress and how it operates, as well as lawyer-client relations, and professional ethics.

Ad hominem attacks on the speaker's intelligence are a very low form of argumentation. Try again.

Thompson was minority counsel for the Watergate committee. Leaking and sabotaging the investigation on behalf of the White House was extremely unethical. It speaks volumes about Thompson's character and political ambition.

-- Bokonon

Enough at least, to exclude him from serious contemplation as a Republican candidate for President.

If he does get nominated by a Republican party bent on self-immolation, then he will get owned, hardcore, in the next election.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

I didn't mean that as an attack but if you took it as such, I apologize.

I have worked with a few congressional committees and with some ass't secretaries over the years (both parties -- in my position I don't advocate, I advise) and learned that Ben Franklin's advice (I believe I quoted him accurately) applies to Congress more than any otehr group of "professionals" I have ever dealt with: "Three people can keep a secret only if two of them are dead."