What now?

Now that Fred Thompson has decided to withdraw from the race for the GOP nomination, it leaves the very real question of what's left for conservatives.

The answer? I don't really know.

Obviously Giuliani is a liberal, Huckabee is a liberal masquerading as a conservative, and McCain, well McCain's practically a Democrat and doesn't even bother trying to hide it.

That leaves Mitt Romney. The only candidate with at least some conservative credentials, I would dare say he's the only candidate anything close to a conservative left in the race.

However, his mandatory health insurance program while Governor of Massachusetts and his promised giveaway to Detroit to try to "revive" the auto industry there show his real stripes.

Is it time to sit out 2008? Won't that just mean a victory for Obama or Hillary?

Let me ask - if the candidate is McCain, what, precisely, would be the difference? McCain is for open borders, expanded government health care, buys into the global warming lie, and otherwise acts as if he was reading a Clinton position paper.

Let's not forget throwing away the right to filibuster in the Senate, thanks to his "Gang of 14" compromise.

Perhaps it's time for something new.

Third parties never work, of course. You need a political party to have a number of supporters in power, or you're just an Independent like Lieberman.

But the GOP has drifted so far away from what it was under Reagan, I no longer recognize it.

So is it time for a Conservative Party? I can't say.

But if the GOP thinks it's a silly fantasy, I suspect the Whigs thought a third party was a non-starter as well.

That third party became, of course, the GOP.

Fred's Officially In

Of course now that Fred's officially in the race, the link on the left will allow you to donate to his campaign, if you so choose.

I truly believe Fred's the best hope we have for the future of the United States.

Whether you agree or not, won't you at least take the time to research what he has to offer?

Fred Thompson Gets It Right (Again)

Fred Thompson has some wonderful comments on the Scooter Libby case (and the Plame joke trial) at his ABC Radio site, a transcript of his Fred Thompson Report radio commentary:

The sentencing of Scooter Libby was the last in a series of acts that has resulted in a shocking injustice – one created by and enabled by federal officials. As I’ve been saying for many months, this is a “he said-she said” case about political infighting that would have never been brought in any other prosecutor’s office in America.

The CIA started the ball rolling by sending the Democratic partisan husband of one of its employees to Niger on a sensitive mission. Knowing an opportunity when he saw one, he returned and blasted the Bush Administration (the fact that he blatantly falsified a few important things along the way is another story). It should not have been a shock to CIA officials when people then asked, “Who is this guy and why was he sent to Niger?” The only mystery in Washington is why the CIA employee-wife’s name, Valerie Plame, took as long as it did to leak.

Nevertheless, the CIA demanded that the Department of Justice investigate the leak of her name (not surprisingly, the fact that the CIA was making such a request was leaked). This put pressure on the DOJ. The DOJ, in turn, promptly caved to the media and Congressional pressure to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the Plame leak. However, there were two glaring problems for anyone with a sense of justice, or who may have gone to law school for one semester.

The Justice Department and the new Special Counsel knew that:

1.) The leaking of Valerie Plame’s name did not constitute a crime because she was not a “covered person” under the relative criminal statue and,

2.) They already knew the name of the leaker: State Department official Richard Armitage.

Yet small matters such as these do not matter much to Justice Department officials trying to cover their own fanny, or to a newly minted Special Prosecutor with a reputation to make and members of the media to satisfy.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald proceeded to make public statements and employ tactics that would have brought condemnation in any other setting. He moved heaven and earth for a year and a half in order to come up with some sort of “process” crime against a high-level Administration official -- so that he could try them in one of the most anti-Bush Administration places in America, Washington DC.

Knocking it out of the park, he closes with:

Unfortunately, this is an example of what Washington is all about these days. All too often the intersection of politics, law and the media results in a lack of responsibility by practitioners in all three areas. Having all this crashing down on the head of one man and his family, in a time when national security leaks are published regularly on the front pages of the newspapers without consequence, will justifiably add to the cynicism and outrage on the part of all observers.

For the preamble to our Constitution, our founders stated explicitly the purposes for our Constitution. Listed even before providing for domestic tranquility or for the common defense was the establishment of justice. Official behavior, with regard to matters like the Scooter Libby case, are not what our framers had in mind. Now this excessive sentence, given by the Federal District Judge is just another in a long line of reasons why Mr. Libby should be pardoned.

Yet another reason I believe Mr. Thompson should be our next President.

Scooter Libby MUST be pardoned NOW.

The Scooter Libby situation has gotten completely out of hand.

The trial, the very definition of a political witch hunt, has resulted in the complete distruction of the career and life of a man who's done nothing but serve his country as an ordinary civil servant.

Yes, he was guilty, if you agree that a co-worker disagreeing with you about what you said to them a few years ago is indeed perjury and obstruction of justice.

However, the behavior of Patrick Fitzgerald in this case is completely out of hand. His note is the equivalent of saying "yes, we found him guilty of running a red light, but I know he murdered a person, so let's sentence him as if we had found him guilty of that" - and the judge agreed.

I can't rehash the details as well as National Review Online has, so I'll leave the heavy lifting to them. But 30 months and a $250K fine for Libby while Sandy Berger destroys documents from the National Archives and gets a $50K fine, loses his security clearance for three years and is disbarred.

Disparity? Political pandering? Fitzgerald trying to redeem himself because he could never prove any crime actually occurred? Payback for not being able to "stick it to Cheney and Rove?" Naaah.

Fred Thompson has said he would have already pardoned Mr. Libby by now were he President; let's hope that for once President Bush has the intestinal fortitude to do the same.

I'm not counting on it.

Finally, we can show our support financially.

With the formation of Fred Thompson's exploratory committee, those of us who have been urging Fred to run for months now can finally put our money where our mouths are and support the man we firmly believe will be the next President of the United States.

If you feel the same, won't you donate to the cause via the provided link?

Yet another Fred Thompson blog

Just a short post to flog another Draft Fred Thompson blog.

While we're at it, here's a link to Modern Commentaries, written in large part by a fellow Fred Thompson supporter and contributor to Sweetness & Light. (Check out their new forum if you haven't yet!)

Really, Fred is our nation's best hope for the future, and the best overall choice for President in 2008. This isn't about GOP or Democrat anymore, it's about America.

Many, many people I've spoken to are excited about Fred in a way I just haven't seen since Reagan's 1984 campaign.

Now, if he'll just run; he just quit Law & Order, so that's a good sign.

Time to stop flying.

Fox News reports the Imams tossed off the US Airways flight are not only suing the airline, but are thinking of suing the passengers too:

NEW YORK — Six Muslim imams who were forcibily removed from a US Airways flight last year and are now suing the airline for discrimination may also be suing some passengers who were aboard the flight.

In the lawsuit filed last week, the imams say that unnamed “John Doe” passengers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported that they engaged in “suspicious” behavior — praying in the terminal — before they boarded the plane on Nov. 20.

Omar Mohammedi, the imams’ New York-based lawyer, said that the imams have not yet decided whether to pursue this complaint, but if they do it would affect only those passengers who were prejudiced in their suspicions.

“I think there is a difference between someone reporting suspicious activity and someone making false reports about a fact that did not exist,” Mohammedi said. “We are not saying that people should not report; we are saying people should not abuse that process just because someone was praying or someone looked religious.”

He said that if the passengers were suspicious based only on the imams’ appearance, “then they should be liable . . . these people should be careful not to abuse the process and be responsible.”

[ … ]

FOX News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said the imams have grounds against the passengers if they feel they were unjustly discriminated against.

“Can you sue somebody for complaining about them? Yes. Will you prevail in that lawsuit? You will if there’s a reasonable basis for your complaint,” he said. “These imams turned out not to be terrorists, they had no weapons, they had no bombs. As far as we know, they had no plan to harm anybody, so the harm was illusionary.”

Napolitano said that if the case ever makes it to court, it will be up to a jury to decide whether the fears of the passengers who reported the “suspicious” behavior were founded, and whether the passengers were biased.

Have we learned nothing from September 11? Perhaps it's time for Americans to just stop flying if this is going to be the result; after all Mohammed Atta and crew “had no weapons,” as regulations of the time defined them, either, and had they been stopped they’d likely be sitting on a pile of cash from our legal system.

Imagine the newspaper reports of September 12: “I can't understand what these passengers were thinking. No one hijacks planes anymore, these assertions are insane. We have no proof of ill intentions on the behalf of any of these passengers. Why, to fly a plane into a building would be suicidal.”

Grassroots "Draft Fred Thompson" campaign gains steam...

Wow... it's not just me. The grass roots "Draft Fred Thompson" campaign is truly gaining steam!



Both Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have reported their emails indicate excitement like exists for no other candidate.

All I can state is my anecdotal experience, and that's that the conservatives and Republicans I've talked to, every day folks, are truly excited at the prospect of a Thompson run like no other candidate that's announced. Even Giuliani seems to be at most a "hold your nose and pull the lever" candidate for most conservatives, but Thompson's truly a breath of fresh air. He's a true conservative, not a poseur, and is unafraid to say what he really thinks. We could only hope for a candidate like him.

There's an energy around this man right now that's like nothing I've seen around a Republican since Reagan, and it's certainly far stronger than any of the other candidates have around them. (The press seems fixated on Gingrich - why?!?!).

So what can you do? Register at the grass roots Draft Fred Thompson web site, and sign the online petition urging him to run. Call talk shows, talk to your friends and neighbors. Tell them about Thompson - what he thinks, what he's stated - and allow them to make up their own minds. I'll bet most of them will feel the way I do - that we must do everything we can to get Fred Thompson to run for President.

He's the best bet I've seen for the future of the United States.