The, um, objective and unbiased reporters in the MSM are really starting to get vicious about Fred Thompson. Check out this churlish item from ABC News:

Fred Thompson, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his work as a Washington lobbyist, telling The Associated Press that lobbying is an important part of life because "government's got their hands in everything."

...Thompson, who likes to cast himself as a political outsider, earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government for more than 20 years. He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

He also was a lobbyist for deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was widely criticized for endorsing "necklacing," the gruesome practice of execution where gasoline-soaked tires are thrown over a person's neck and set ablaze.

Good Lord! Sounds terrible. Reading that did give me pause, I have to admit. I'm glad to see, though, that Thompson brushes the charges off at his blog. His response is an audio file and you can load it in a new window by clicking here.

I wish, though, that he'd be a little more specific about these charges. (Give me specific info I can use to defend your {almost} campaign, Senator Thompson. Those charges are really ugly.) I've become a Thompson booster of late and I'm only inches away from that all-important Official SouthCon Endorsement. I'd like to have reason to believe, though, that Thompson hasn't really worked shamelessly for Haitian dictators before I put up the old "Thompson '08" banner in my sidebar.

Labels: News, Politics, Thompson 08