Fred Thompson pulls no punches with the U.N.:

Recently, the new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the root cause of the current genocide in Darfur is [wait for it...] global warming. Now if you've been following the tragedy of the Darfur region in the African nation of Sudan, you know how absurd that statement is.

There's not room here for even a good summary, but let me make a few points. Sudan straddles the line between Christian African and Muslim Arabic cultures, bordering Egypt and Libya on the north. Bloody regional warfare stretches back centuries but, in modern times, the country has been in pretty much of a constant state of war since the 1950s. It's safe to say that millions have died in wars that are often aimed at control of the rich oil fields in the South. Today, however, the vastly reduced African Christian population isn't even involved. Two Muslim factions, divided along racial lines, are fighting for control of Darfur.

Now it's true that the return of cyclical droughts has made agriculture and life more and more difficult for the people in the region. The impact of the weather, however, doesn't approach the destruction that generations of warfare have worked on the land and the people. With peace and freedom, the economy of Darfur could have easily adapted to any climate change no matter the cause.

Why, then, would the new UN Secretary General blame climate change? I think it's pretty obvious.

Blaming the Islamic government and groups that have manipulated events in Sudan will get him nothing but enemies. Blaming global warming, however, is basically the same thing as blaming America. America is by no means the only major source of greenhouse gases, but we've taken the most political heat. The reason is that congress rightfully balked at ratifying the Kyoto international climate treaties during the Clinton presidency.

There is simply no downside to blaming America, because Americans don't punish their ideological foes. From the UN, we don't even require sanity sometimes. And there might even be an upside to blaming us, since there are Americans who suffer from such ingrained feelings of guilt, they'll support increased aid to both the UN and Sudan.

There is a lesson to be learned here, though. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is arguably the most powerful man in the international community today. We know he's unwilling to blame those who actually gave the orders to commit genocide in Darfur. And apparently he's happy to shift the blame for ongoing deaths to those living peaceful, productive lives in the West.

Now hopefully we can work toward international cooperation with regard to environmental policies that make sense. It's not very encouraging though when the head of the world's leading international body uses climate change as an all purpose excuse in order to avoid hard realities.

And I'd be happy to put the title of this post on my car as a bumper sticker, together with the phrase "Fred Thompson '08".

There's nothing I can add here.  Fred calls out the absurdity better than I ever could.

Run Fred Run!

Posted by: caltechgirl at 07:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Bolton??? Hmm...NOW that I might get into. Really. Yes we need someone to stand up to the wimpy world we live in; we should think of this as doing the world a favor and saving it from Islamic takeover.

Posted by: Raven at June 28, 2007 07:59 PM (sMiuY)

2 And you as their campaign advisor!

Posted by: Greta at June 28, 2007 08:22 PM (Xl4tG)

3 hmmm.. it seems Ki-moon ain't towing the islamic line on Darfur, last year, Sudan's President Field Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir claimed that reports in western newspapers of hundreds of thousands dead in his country's brutal civil war are all part of an Israeli-led worldwide conspiracy. Run Fred, Run!

Posted by: LindaSoG at June 28, 2007 08:45 PM (GBBmd)

4 That would make an awesome bumper sticker...! I hadn't thought about Bolton, but he's another stand up guy who doesn't pull his punches... Thompson/Bolton it is, and you heard it here first...!

Posted by: pam at June 29, 2007 04:26 AM (l6NIn)

5 I love Fred! So far he has yet to disappoint me. Run Fred Run!

Posted by: Teresa at June 29, 2007 07:48 AM (gsbs5)

6 I'm still hoping for a Thompson/Norris ticket.

Posted by: Boy Named Sous at June 29, 2007 06:14 PM (bM2l6)

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I find it very interesting that one of Fred's strategies so far has been to talk about the subjects that other candidates shy away from, including Israel and communism in Latin America, most notably in castro's Cuba.  Fred takes on castro again, in this piece, which puts castro AND hugo chavez into some historical perspective:

We're coming up on the 45th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis and I think it's worth talking about. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy faced down the USSR, risking total war, and forced the Soviets to remove ballistic weapons from Cuba. Missiles located less than a hundred miles from America were aimed at the US.

A lot of people, I think, have forgotten. Most schools don't even teach about it in any real detail. Judging by the indifference that many people have to the nuclear arming of Iran, I think it's a lesson almost entirely lost -- except among Cuban-Americans.

Over the years, they've never stopped watching "el Comandante" -- or warning us about him. At the same time, they've been criticized by people who say that Castro is really no threat. Current events in South America, though, have proven that we should have been listening to our Cuban-Americans friends.

Last week, when Hugo Chavez officially killed press freedoms, even a big part of Venezuela's far left seemed to realize that theyÂ’d created a monster. Unfortunately, it may be too late. He's already packed Venezuela's high court, legislature and military with his loyalists. Right now, he's operating without any check or balance.

During his rise, Venezuelans say that Chavez spent hours a day on the phone with Castro. Additionally, Castro sent thousands of his Communist apparatchiks to help transition Venezuela from a free country to a totalitarian state.

Without Cuban “help,” Venezuela wouldn’t be in the terrible mess it is today. Castro, after all, has been at this since the 1960's and he's given Chavez the benefit of his experience.

There's one big difference between Venezuela today and Cuba then, however. Castro needed Soviet aid to push his so-called "revolution." Chavez does not. One of his first moves was to bolster the Cuban dictatorship with oil subsidies -- a hundred thousand barrels a day to the tune of two billion dollars a year. One of the main factors preventing Cuba's transition towards democracy is Venezuelan oil wealth. On June 26, that wealth could increase significantly, as Chavez says heÂ’ll nationalize the petroleum industry on that date.

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New to the ImWithFred site, as of today, Fred's Blog. It has a feed, too.  If you're a "Friends of Fred" member you can log in and comment, too.

Here's what Harvey usually refers to as the "obligatory sucky first post":

Folks, I'm on the road, but wanted to drop you a note of thanks for making the ImWithFred.com website launch a huge success.

Also, I'd like to mention that I'll be appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" tonight, June 12. So stay up with us and watch, or record it to watch at your convenience.

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Not invited to tonight's debate, but I'm sure he'll have something INTERESTING to say.

Fred will be on Hannity and Colmes (known as "Sean and Fish Face" in our house) tonight after the debate.

Frank J (another Thompsoniac) says:

Fred Thompson will be on Hannity & Colmes after the Republican debate that's going on as I type. My suggestion for what he should say:

"It was a great debate, but there's one thing I can say that none of those candidates can..."

He turns to face the camera and it zooms for a close up.

"I'm Fred Thompson."

Oh, and as for Scarborough's comments on Jeri Kehn Thompson: Get a life, jackoff. How would you like it if someone asked if your wife or mother "worked the pole"?

One more, here's an interesting Fred story from John Fund in today's Opinion Journal.

Yeah, yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to post, but I had to tell you to watch FRED.

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1 Crap; I missed it! Well, there are always transcripts... Have you signed up at imwithfred[dot]com??

Posted by: pam at June 05, 2007 07:42 PM (l6NIn)

2 You can see the interview - it was fabulous - at http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html

Posted by: Spec Bowers at June 05, 2007 10:41 PM (hqWiX)

3 Missed the debate, but caught the interview. Signed up too.

Posted by: Ith at June 06, 2007 12:39 PM (2XEb0)

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Wednesday's Townhall column:

Let me ask you a hypothetical question. What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, N.Y.? What do you think our response would be if Mexican troops for two years had launched daily rocket attacks on San Diego -- and bragged about it?

I can tell you, our response would look nothing like Israel's restrained and pinpoint reactions to daily missile attacks from Gaza. We would use whatever means necessary to win the war. There would likely be numerous casualties on our enemy's side, but we would rightfully hold those who attacked us responsible.

Run, Fred, Run!

h/t Brian the Sailor at Pereiraville

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Run Fred, Run!

Today's editorial (too good for a short excerpt):

Well, he's done it. Hugo Chavez was already systematically silencing criticism of his autocratic rule through threats and intimidation. Journalists have been threatened, beaten, and even killed. Now he's shut down the last opposition television networks in Venezuela and arrested nearly 200 protesters, mostly students. It's a monumental tragedy and the Venezuelan people will pay the price for decades to come. Americans are also at risk as he funds anti-American candidates and radicals all over Latin America.

It's equally tragic that the U.S. is in no position to provide the victims of this emerging dictator with the truth. There was a time, though, when Americans were on the frontlines of pro-freedom movements all over the world. I'm talking about the "surrogate" broadcast network that included Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, often called "the Radios."

[...]

Cynics still say that the USSR fell of its own weight, and that President Reagan's efforts to bring it down were irrelevant, but Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev say differently. Both have said that, without the Radios, the USSR wouldn't have fallen. The Radios were not some bland public-relations effort, attracting audiences only with American pop music. They engaged the intellectual and influential populations behind the Iron Curtain with accurate news and smart programming about freedom and democracy. They had sources and networks within those countries that sometimes outperformed the CIA. When Soviet hardliners and reformers were facing off, and crowds and tanks were on the streets of Moscow and Bucharest, the radios were sending real-time information to the people, including the military, and reminding them of what was at stake.

Then we won the Cold War. The USSR collapsed in 1991, and America relaxed. Military downsizing began and the Radios began to reduce broadcast air time to target countries.

Now, of course, we know that the Islamofascists, many trained by the old Soviets, were making plans and plots of their own. Unfortunately, the plans to broadcast a pro-freedom message into Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Kurdistan, and Ukraine were shelved or diluted. Reagan's ideological audacity was replaced with a more "diplomatic" tone.

And see where it's got us? Not only has Islamic totalitarianism spread without a true ideological challenge, many of the freed Soviet bloc countries are slipping back into repression. Russia is making the same old threats and even protecting Iran's efforts to build nukes.<

We'll never know if Afghanistan might have rejected al Qaeda if America had actively engaged that country as we did those Eastern Europeans. We can't know if Venezuelans would have chosen liberty over the false security of authoritarianism if they had been challenged to face the issues. I do know, though, that it's time for a new generation of Americans to stand up for freedom — like others before us. And this time, we’ll have a whole new set of media technologies.(emphasis mine --Ed.)

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(you can look here for the answer and the rest of the piece if you don't want to guess)

"Whether or not the Internet can elect any particular candidate in any particular race, it's clear that all of you and our many friends across the blogosphere and the Web are part of a true information revolution. That's why so much of my effort has been focused on talking to Americans through this medium. By empowering individuals and building communities, the Internet provides a way of going around the inside-the-beltway crowd to reach people in numbers unheard of not that long ago.

I believe this direct communication and discussion is going to have an enormous impact on our political process. Our nation is facing unprecedented threats, and the challenges of globalization. We have a 70-plus trillion dollar entitlement shortfall and a government that is not effective in important ways.

To solve our problems, we have to realize that our country is pretty evenly divided along party lines. With close numbers in the House and the Senate, there will be no real reform without real bipartisanship. Too often, what we are seeing isn't an effort to find solutions, but rather insults and purely partisan politics. There are many good and responsible people in government who are willing to work together, but the level of bipartisanship needed for real progress can only be achieved when politicians perceive that the American people demand it."

h/t BethC

Run, Fred, Run!

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Dear Mooreon,

You really shouldn't attempt to play big boy games until you are potty trained and no longer wail for Mommy at the drop of a hat.  Oh, and BTW, not that you care, but you can't hide behind Mommy's skirts and question her parenting skills at the same time....

Love and Kisses,

CTG

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In today's column, Fred responds to George Tenet's questionable recollections about National Security and intelligence in the days leading up to 9/11.

Interestingly enough, Fred seems to take issue more with the MEDIA and their handling of Tenet's claims than with what Tenet has to say for himself.

Some excerpts from the piece:

I havenÂ’t read the book, but I have followed the media accounts. My attention was drawn to TenetÂ’s statements that al Qaeda is here and waiting and that they wish nothing more than to be able to see a mushroom cloud above the United States.

Naturally, the media emphasis is not on that. Its attention is on any differences Tenet had with the administration. The mediaÂ’s premise is that Iraq should not have been considered a real threat to us and that the administration basically misled the country into war. While one may take issue with Tenet on several things, I was intrigued that on some very important issues, Tenet did not follow the media script when answering RussertÂ’s questions.

[...]

On the issue of weapons of mass destruction, although Iraq undoubtedly had such weapons in the past, Tenet acknowledges that everybody got it wrong as to whether they would have them at the time of the invasion. On the nuclear issue, he said that the CIA thought that Saddam was five to seven years away from a nuclear capability — unless he was able to obtain fissile material from another source.

A couple of things occur to me here. In the first place, is five to seven years that far away? Since four years have passed since the invasion, that would be only a year from now if we had not invaded. If he had been able to obtain fissile materials, the time could have been much shorter. There are over 40 countries in the world with fissile material sufficient to make a nuclear bomb and much of it is unguarded.

The CIA could have been on the short side or on the long side of the estimate. They have underestimated the capabilities of hostile nations before, such as North KoreaÂ’s missile technologies. Also, Tenet acknowledged that before the Gulf War, the CIA had underestimated how far along Saddam was on his nuclear program.

All of this hardly fits with the notion that Saddam posed no threat. As Tenet made the media rounds, he may have helped the administration as much as hurt it, but he was in no danger of having that fact highlighted by his interviewers.

I don't even want to contemplate THAT in the context of the United States NOT going after Saddam.  Do you?

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Fred sits down with Breitbart on the afternoon after the GOP Debate. The discussion touches the GOP debate, whether he'll run, and what Americans are looking for in a President.

The video is here.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this video is that it's a single shot, no cuts, no edits.

This is honesty, or he deserves about 12 Oscars.

Run, Fred, Run!

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1 Either way -- honesty or Oscar -- Fred's a wonderful change from the usual political fodder.

Posted by: Venomous Kate at May 07, 2007 04:08 PM (fBHz6)

2 I take it he's your candidate. HEH!

Posted by: beth at May 07, 2007 05:28 PM (u79qt)

3 Fred has my support!!!!!

Posted by: Janette at May 07, 2007 05:34 PM (5R+zg)

4 Run, Fred, run!!

Posted by: Alan at May 07, 2007 05:44 PM (vuVDm)

5 Wow. Thanks for the heads up!

Posted by: Richmond at May 08, 2007 09:46 AM (e8QFP)

6 Oh hell yes!!!

Posted by: Sam at May 08, 2007 10:12 AM (b1/rU)

7 I hope he runs. I might even vote for him.

Posted by: Ith at May 08, 2007 10:16 AM (lm4l0)

8 RUN, FRED! Please? *sending puppy over to shit on his rug until he runs*

Posted by: Margi at May 08, 2007 12:08 PM (r6MCS)

9 Who?

Posted by: Thomas Warlock at May 09, 2007 08:20 AM (jKwm/)

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UPDATE: This video is a series of highlights. The full speech is presented in four parts below the jump.

Here's last night's Fred speech, as mentioned below:

Also, Weekend Pundit has a great roundup of recent Fred links. more...

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Today Fred asks the tough questions about gender oppression in the Middle East and elsewhere:

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. IÂ’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 theyÂ’ve spent covering Abu Ghraib. For some reason, everyday atrocities such as the endemic beatings, honor killings and forced marriages of women just donÂ’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.

Fred's right.  Where is the outrage at the perpetrators of these crimes?  Where is the praise for those who come in behind and right the wrongs?  Whether the hero is from the US or anywhere else?

Why does the media CONSISTENTLY portray the US as the world's only bad guy?  Because we supposedly know better than the savages who live in other, less-advanced countries?  Are they saying that people from other countries are STUPID?  Or just that we should expect this kind of behavior, as we would from children, or animals who don't know any better?

Evil is evil.  Cruelty is cruelty.  Period.  It shouldn't matter whether it's a battered wife in Peoria or a widow starving to death in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.  Everyone should be brought to task for their bad acts equally.

On the other hand, good is good, too.  And it should be praised.  Yet we never hear the good stories, the uplifting moments, the people and programs that reach out.  All we hear is the bad, when it finally gets reported.

We should challenge ourselves to do as Fred ultimately suggests, to look at both sides of the story and ask "Where is the outrage?  Whence comes the help?" and put these events back into real-life perspective, rather than seeing them only in the harsh blue glow thrown off by the boob tube.

h/t HWNNL

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Fred Thompson either needs a paycheck SO badly that he's settled for making political commentary, or he's setting himself up BRILLIANTLY for a presidential bid in '08.

Today Fred tackles "healthcare" (**cough, bullshit, cough**) in Cuba, and a possible documentary on same by Michael Moore:

You might have read the stories about filmmaker Michael Moore taking ailing workers from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Cuba for free medical treatments. According to reports, he filmed the trip for a new movie that bashes America for not having government-provided health care.

Now, I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care. I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented. Simply calling his movies documentaries rather than works of fiction, I think, may be the biggest fiction of all.

While this PR stunt has obviously been successful -- here I am talking about it -- Moore's a piker compared to Fidel Castro and his regime. Moore just parrots the story they created -- one of the most successful public relations coups in history. This is the story of free, high quality Cuban health care.

The truth is that Cuban medical care has never recovered from Castro's takeover -- when the countryÂ’s health care ranked among the world's best. He won the support of the Cuban people by promising to replace BatistaÂ’s dictatorship with free elections, and to end corruption. Once in power, though, he made himself dictator and instituted Soviet-style Communism. Cubans not only failed to regain their democratic rights, their economy plunged into centrally planned poverty.

As many as half of Cuba's doctors fled almost immediately -- and defections continue to this day. Castro won't allow observers in to monitor his nation's true state, but defectors tell us that many Cubans live with permanent malnutrition and long waits for even basic medical services. Many treatments we take for granted aren't available at all -- except to the Communist elite or foreigners with dollars.

For them, Castro keeps "show" clinics equipped with the best medicines and technologies available. It was almost certainly one of these that Moore went to, if the stories in the NY Post and The Daily News are true.

Nothing about this story inspires doubt, though. Elements in Hollywood have been infatuated with the Cuban commander for years. It always leaves me shaking my head when I read about some big-time actor or director going to Cuba and gushing all over Castro. And, regular as rain, they bring up the health care myth when they come home.

What is it that leads people to value theoretically "free" health care, even when it's lousy or nonexistent, over a free society that actually delivers health care? You might have to deal with creditors after you go to the emergency ward in America, but no one is denied medical care here. I guarantee even the poorest Americans are getting far better medical services than many Cubans.

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Former Senator Fred Thompson has something to say about the criticisms heaped on the US by her "allies":

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 U.S. 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.

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