He’s far better with a script

August 20, 2007

On Friday afternoon, CNN’s John King chatted with one-of-these-days presidential hopeful Fred Thompson at the Iowa State Fair. The actor-senator-lobbyist — who was mocked for wearing Gucci loafers to the fair — seemed a little confused about his position on gay marriage.

KING: You met this morning privately with some conservative activists in this state, the people who helped people win the caucuses in the past.

They say that they were very comfortable with everything you said in that private meeting, very comfortable with your agenda. But they say they are skeptical, that they don’t want to just hear lip service. They want to see results.

And they want to know, over time, as they meet you, would a President Fred Thompson actively push a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage? Would a President Fred Thompson actively push to overturn Roe v. Wade? What are the answers to those questions?

THOMPSON: Yes. Yes. I think that, with regard to gay marriage, you have a full faith and credit issue. I don’t think one state ought to be able to pass a law requiring gay marriage or allowing gay marriage, and have another state be required to follow along under full faith and credit.

There are some exceptions and exemptions for that. It hasn’t happened yet, but I think a federal court would very much — very well likely will — will go in that direction. And the constitutional amendment would cure that.

Most people read that answer to mean, well, no one knew what in the world Thompson was trying to say. Yes, he wants an amendment? No, there need to be “exceptions and exemptions”? An amendment would “cure” what, exactly?

Given the reaction, Thompson’s campaign felt that it was necessarily to issue a written clarification. It didn’t help.

A Thompson aide sent this to National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez:

In an interview with CNN today, former Senator Fred Thompson’s position on constitutional amendments concerning gay marriage was unclear.

Thompson believes that states should be able to adopt their own laws on marriage consistent with the views of their citizens.

He does not believe that one state should be able to impose its marriage laws on other states, or that activist judges should construe the constitution to require that.

If necessary, he would support a constitutional amendment prohibiting states from imposing their laws on marriage on other states.

Fred Thompson does not support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Remember, this isn’t a convoluted answer from an unprepared candidate; it’s a written statement reflecting the unprepared candidate’s policy position.

So, Thompson doesn’t want an amendment to ban gay marriage, but he’s open to amending the Constitution to prevent states from recognizing each other’s marriage laws. (You can get married in, say, Oregon, but that doesn’t mean Idaho would have to recognize your marriage as legal.)

Needless to say, this isn’t the conservative line at all, and the Dobson crowd — which has been gravitating towards Thompson for weeks — will be deeply disappointed to hear that their so-called savior candidate opposes the very amendment they want so desperately.

The more I see of Thompson, the more I’m convinced his campaign is going to struggle. A lot.

guess he doesn’t really understand what the full faith and credit clause is really all about. what’s next – politicians in, say, the south deciding that their state will no longer recognize, say, marriages between a white woman and a black man? i’m just saying……

  • BaaaaawHaaaaaaaHaaaaa! Thompson is feeble. He’d be an idiot to run for any other reason than to line his pockets. It doesn’t matter anyway. The Republicans will nominate “Osama Mitt Romney.” If it comes down to it, Mittler just buy off the other Republicans. Everybody has a price, right GOP?

  • Wow! Would Fred’s anti-marriage constitutional amendment just apply to same sex marriage (sounds unconstitutional to me) or would that apply to all marriages? How would the alleged pro-family crowd respond to one state not recognizing the heterosexual marriages of another state and giving carte blanche to screw around once state lines are crossed?

    I’ve read in numerous places that old Fred has a lazy bone, but this was as intellectually lazy a response as I’ve ever seen a supposed presidential candidate throw out there. Time to cross Fred off the list for the Repubs. Who will be their next savior from having to select a Mormon, an idiot with a huge mean streak or a flip-flopping maverick?

  • Sorry. That was evil Haik in comment #2. Good Haik is back in control- Thompson is avuncular and he smells good. His wife is hot, and Law and Order is a good show. So…whatever.

  • Shorter Fred Thompson:

    I have no idea frickin’ idea how the Supreme Court works.

    Fortunately for Deaderick, the fRighties have simple needs. He’s tall and he smells nice.

  • Hell, even I’d support Thompson’s amendment, as long as it applied to both gay and straight marriages. Let’s get the state out of the marriage game altogether, and we’ll all be a lot better off.

  • Thompson’s genius in chipping away at full faith and credit is sheer genius but he, like many great visionaries, fails to push his vision to its ultimate perfection. For Thompson and the Republican base this perfection is obviously to make the U.S. (again) a confederacy.

    He’d win in a landslide.

  • Good point Haik! What about being a reactionary doofus like Guiliani? Was he just born that way? Or did he actually choose it?

  • Lets assume for a second that this was a careful and accurate statement of Frederick of Hollywood’s position, which it very well may be. I think this is an effort to be Solomonic that ends up instead being Sophmoric. It pleases no one. The Dobson crowd will go freakin’ insane (more than they already are) over the opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment. An amendment simply exempting same-sex marriage from the Full Faith and Credit clause is a poor consolation prize for the fundies.

    On the other hand, his underlying anti-gay position and convoluted attempt at a middle ground will hardly impress moderates and liberals.

    Moreover, denying full faith and credit for something so fundamental as marital status rigths would be immensely complicated and convoluted – it is an easy lip-service answer, but a constitutional and legal Pandora’s Box.

    This looks like an effort to stay safe that inadvertently resulted in a lose-lose-lose for Fred. Splitting this issue is a lot harder than, say, driving your red truck a block or two before switching to your modern luxuty sedan.

  • I imagine that Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, both of whom are fairly competent politicians if nothing else, may be kind of looking forward to having Fred Thompson to kick around.

  • Both sides should be applauding his response!! Fred simply states that the federal government should not be involved in this issue, which is clearly correct! The less the federal government is in our lives and our bedrooms, the better.

  • I don’t quite understand what this post and most of the comments are getting at. Thompson’s position was not unclear or particularly ill-informed in the interview– he’s saying that he’d like to constitutionalize the existing Defense of Marriage Act, which purports to exempt states from having to recognize same-sex spousal unions entered into in other states pursuant to the Full Faith and Credit Clause. There are serious questions about the constitutionality of DOMA (how can Congress relieve the states of their obligation to comply with the Constitution?), so passing an amendment to carve out that exception would seem to make sense, though whether it’s a desirable policy is of course another question. But I see nothing in the transcript or the written statement to suggest that Thompson doesn’t know what he’s talking about or isn’t articulating an informed position on the issue.

    If, on the other hand, the post and comments are simply pointing out that Thompson’s view probably doesn’t go as far as the far-right crowd would probably like, that’s true, but it hardly suggests that “no one knew what in the world Thompson was trying to say.”

  • So I guess under Thompson’s plan, if any state says you can’t marry anyone younger than one of your children then Thompson might be in some trouble.

    Heh.

    Seriously, I don’t see the bible thumper women voting for a guy who legitimizes trophy wives. And without 100% thumper enthusiasm the Republicans are even deader than they would be otherwise, which is pretty dead.

    Their only hope is that Hillary becomes the nominee, deflating progressive Democratic enthusiasm and igniting Republican hatred of all things Clinton. I think if Hillary is our nominee, the Republicans will be so instinctively inflamed that they’ll vote for any moron with an “R” by their name. I think that won’t be enough to win, but those Diebold machines are still out there.

    That may be Thompson’s plan, in which case he can say any damn thing he wants as long as it isn’t “I’m gay”.

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