NEWS--FDT Was A Lobbyist!!!

The Associated Press has written a shocking article showing that FDT was a lobbyist for over 20 years!

Here is the summary put on the article by CNN:

• Fred Thompson has earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government


• Actor-politician continues to position himself as a political outsider


• He is considering a run for president in 2008

OK, let's deal with this. We are talking about more than 20 years. Let's do a bit of math here: $1M over 20 years is $50,000 per year--it does not sound to me like he was a very busy lobbyist. If he was busy, he was either not effective or at least inexpensive.

On the specific people that he lobbied for, Power Line does a good job reviewing the specifics.

Why is the AP doing this? This is an attack piece. The basic premise is that FDT is "position[ing] himself as a political outsider". The only problem is that he has never (that I have read) said anything of the nature. If you mean by positioning that he is differentiating himself from everyone else in the race, then I would say he is.

This is not "news". This is an editorial with a desired outcome. I find it interesting (but not surprising) that the AP is writing articles based on the DNC talking points.