Thompson roasts Obama and Dems at GOP convention
by Bob Hoig, Publisher
Midlands Business Journal
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson threw enough red meat to the lions at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul Tuesday night to stock a supermarket butcher case.
From Barack Obama’s campaign pledges to selectively raise taxes to his lack of governing experience, Thompson alternately brought cheers and laughter.
But the noise seemed loudest when he praised the leadership and character of the GOP presidential candidate, John McCain, who endured five years in a North Vietnam prison camp and fought, often as a maverick, for his principles in public life.
“This is the kind of character that civilizations from the beginning of our history have sought in their leaders,” Thompson said.
“Strength. Courage. Humility. Wisdom. Duty. Honor.”
“There are two questions Americans will never have to ask. Who is this man? Can we trust him with the presidency?”
The McCain family’s tradition of military service traces to the Revolutionary War. His father and grandfather were Navy admirals and the McCain’s have one son headed for Iraq around Christmas, another getting ready to report for his second tour of duty and a third enrolled at the Naval Academy.
“At the point in time when the war in Iraq was going badly and the public lost confidence, John stood up. He called for more troops. And now, we’re winning,” Thompson said.
“Our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases. They tell you that they’re not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses.
“So, unless you buy something from a business, like groceries, clothes or gasoline, or unless you get a paycheck from a business, a big business or a small business, don’t worry. It will not affect you.
“They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the other side of the bucket.”
He scoured the Democrats for presenting a certain kind of history-making presidential candidate in Obama.
“History-making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for president. Apparently they believe he will match up well with the history-making Democrat-controlled Congress. History-making because it’s the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation’s history.”
All of this, Thompson said, comes when America faces “terrorists, rogue nations developing nuclear weapons, an increasingly belligerent Russia, intensifying competition from China, spending at home that threatens to bankrupt future generations for decades and an expanding government increasingly wasteful and too often incompetent.”
Were there to be a combination of a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democrat president in 2009, Thompson said, “together they would take on these urgent challenges with protectionism, higher taxes and an even bigger bureaucracy and a Supreme Court that would be lost to liberalism for a generation.”
John McCain has been to Iraq since 2003 and when he travels abroad, he prefers seeking the truth amidst the heat and hardships of their daily lives, Thompson said.
“The respect he is given around the world is not because of a tele-prompter speech designed to appeal to America’s critics abroad but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.”
Thompson complained that for years, members of Congress, “Republican and Democrat alike,” have gouged the taxpayer with earmark spending.
He said McCain never sought an earmark. “With a Republican-controlled Congress (in the 1990s and early 2000s), we reformed welfare, we balanced the budget and we began building our military. And what I remember most about those days is sitting next to John on the Senate floor as he led battle after battle to change the acrimonious pork barrel and self-serving ways of Washington – confronting when necessary, reaching across the aisle when possible.”
McCain, Thompson said, “personified why we all came to Washington in the first place.”
“There has never been a time in our nation’s history since we first pledged allegiance to the American flag when the character, judgment and leadership of our president was more important.”
Now, “We need a president and a vice president who will take the bureaucracy by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking,” adding that when McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, get to Washington, “They are not going to care how much the alligators get irritated, they are going to drain the swamp.”
September 2008
