New Quote from Fred on Seeking the Presidency

"When a person thinks about something like this, he thinks about his own situation and who he is and what he maybe can do, and the country and his relationship to the country. And whether or not the man fits the times...In my case anyway, I haven’t planned this since I was high school class president or something like that and plotting my political career. It just evolves...You figure out whether or not at this particular time you can bring something to the table and do something for your country that perhaps is unusual and different and can provide a different kind of leadership at a time that needs it."

-Fred Thompson, WGN Interview May 23, 2007

Fred Thompson responds to Michael Moore taunt for a "debate"

Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore today challenged Fred Thompson to a debate over his alleged use of Cuban cigars: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash6.htm

Thompson immediately responded -- with devastating effect - in a YouTube video, with cigar in hand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdAm6UY4xOE

An instant classic and as one friend put it, this is ART!

Latest by Fred Thompson

Images of Oppression
By Fred Thompson
Friday, May 4, 2007

Sometimes, you read or hear something, and an image forms in your mind that just won't go away. For me, one of those images comes from the 2002 news stories about religious police in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, who beat young girls trying to escape a burning school. Because they weren’t wearing headscarves and black robes, 15 innocent girls were locked in a blazing building to burn while firemen watched helplessly.

Not all Saudis support this sort of extremism, but many Muslim radicals reject the premise that women should have even the most basic rights. These include the right to vote, to work, to drive, to choose one's own husband, to charge a man with abuse or simply to move about without male escort.

One of the worst examples of this gender oppression was Afghanistan during the Taliban days. Women were not allowed to go to school, to work outside the home or even go out in public without a male family member. A woman with a medical emergency, but no male relatives to take her to a doctor, was expected simply to suffer or die. An aged woman with no one to bring her food was expected to starve. Too many did.

Life for women under the Taliban and similar governments ought to inspire anger and indignation in everybody, especially human rights advocates. I'm constantly surprised, however, by the apparent apathy among many who say they care about the rights of women and other minorities.

I doubt, for example, that our television networks have spent as much time exposing the horrors of life for millions of women in pre-liberation Iraq and Afghanistan as they've spent covering Abu Ghraib. For some reason, everyday atrocities such as the endemic beatings, honor killings and forced marriages of women just don’t seem to be newsworthy.

The other side of that coin is that we also rarely hear about dramatic improvements in the lives of women when they come about due to American actions. So let me take a little of your time to give you some good news that might have slipped through the journalistic cracks.

A new study from Johns Hopkins University indicates that, since the Taliban was ousted five years ago, Afghan infant mortality rates have improved dramatically. Every year, more than 40,000 babies live that would have died under Islamofascist tyranny -- and the statistics are still improving. The main reason, according to the study, is improved women's access to medical care.

Some people, including World Bank health specialists, say infant mortality rates have improved far more than the Johns Hopkins study shows -- because the data used is several years old. We know, for example, that the number of Afghan children who are getting vaccinations has doubled and redoubled in just the last few years. Similarly, the number of pregnant women receiving pre-natal care went up six-fold between 2003 and 2006.

In Iraq, the health care and educational statistics are even better. There are, of course, still many areas of life that need to improve in both countries, but we're moving in the right direction. The next time I'm reminded of the suffering women endure in too many radicalized Muslim cultures, or apathy toward their plight back here at home, I'm going to conjure up the image of 40 or 50 thousand Muslim mothers smiling into the faces of healthy babies. You might try the same -- and remember, while you’re doing it, that these babies would not be alive today if it were not for the U.S. and coalition soldiers.

 

Another Great Article from Fred Thompson:

It bothers Americans when we're told how unpopular we are with the rest of the world. For some of us, at least, it gets our back up -- and our natural tendency is to tell the French, for example, that we'd rather not hear from them until the day when they need us to bail them out again.

But we cool off. We're big boys and girls, after all, and we don't really bruise that easily. We're also hopeful that, eventually, our ostrich-headed allies will realize there's a World War going on out there and they need to pick a side -- the choice being between the forces of civilization and the forces of anarchy. Considering the fact that the latter team is growing stronger and bolder daily, while most of our European Union friends continue to dismantle their defenses, that day may not be too long in coming.

In the meantime, let's be realistic about the world we live in. Mexican leaders apparently have an economic policy based on exporting their own citizens, while complaining about US immigration policies that are far less exclusionary than their own. The French jail perfectly nice people for politically incorrect comments, but scold us for holding terrorists at Guantanamo.

Russia, though, takes the cake. Here is a government apparently run by ex-KGB agents who have no problem blackmailing whole countries by turning the crank on their oil pipelines. They're not doing anything shady, they say. They can’t help it if their opponents are so notoriously accident-prone. Criticize these guys and you might accidentally drink a cup of tea laced with a few million dollars worth of deadly, and extremely rare, radioactive poison. Oppose the Russian leadership, and you could trip and fall off a tall building or stumble into the path of a bullet.

The hundreds of demonstrators the Kremlin has had beaten and arrested in the last few weeks alone, we are told, were not pro-democracy activists but common criminals -- like world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Demonstrating without a permit is a serious crime and, luckily for the Kremlin, it turns out that pro-government youth groups seem always to have permits for rallies at the exact times and places that anti-government protesters gather.

Another group that seems to be having trouble with permits is the media. Newspapers and television stations that aren't smart enough to know that America is the enemy and that things are great in Russia can't seem to get their paperwork in order. It’s some sort of IQ test, I guess.

President Vladimir Putin, though, shows no sign that he feels defensive about his remarkable string of luck. He knows who's really to blame for "meddling" in Russian "internal affairs." It's the United States.

He's lambasting us for yielding too much power. One example of this excessive power is the missile defense radar system we want to install in Poland and the Czech Republic -- to give the free world early warning of a missile attack by terrorists or a rogue nation like Iran. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the Russians have been supplying Iran with both nuclear and missile technology while using their UN veto to block sanctions that would force Tehran to back down. Regardless, we're clearly at fault, he says, for putting a defense system close to Mother Russia.

So I wouldn't worry too much about the criticisms we receive. We make mistakes and at times the "carping" may even be on target, but it seems to me that we ought to look at a lot of the complaints as a badge of honor.

YouTube4Fred announced

Posted from the fred08.com site:

Announcing YouTube4Fred - because the most powerful tool in politics is the voice of the voter.

The Draft Fred Thompson 2008 Committee is asking you join us and put your voice into action with "YouTube4Fred!

Tell America in your own words why we need former Senator Fred Thompson as our next President.

Politicians, pundits and pollsters have had their say – now its your turn!

Prepare a personal digital video clip telling why you want to see Fred Thompson run for President, upload it to YouTube through our "YourTube4Fred" page at http://www.fred08.com/.

Each week http://www.fred08.com/ will highlight the top two or three clips. We will link them to our Front Page so that thousands other supporters and members of the media can better understand why Fred Thompson needs to join the 2008 presidential campaign.

This breaks new ground in grassroots politics and gives us a voice we have never had before – Don’t miss your chance to be heard!

The following simple instructions guide you through the process.

Video Format:

1. Start by stating your First Name and the State you are from.

2. Take approximately 30 seconds to tell America why you think Senator Fred Thompson should run for president.

Instructions:

1. Using a webcam or digital video camera, tell why you want Fred Thompson to run for President.
2. Transfer video to your computer.
3. Save the video in any of the following formats: .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG.
4. Create a Youtube account.
5. Follow the instructions to upload video.
6. When prompted, tag the video "Fred Thompson", "Draft", "2008", "yourtube4fred"
7. Email the Draft Committee; mailto:youtube@fred08.com and tell us the URL so we can link to it.

Send an email to your friends encouraging them to participate

See you on YouTube4Fred!