The Conservative Blogs Respond To Thompson's Abortion Rights Lobbying

A question of ontology: is the Fred Thompson abortion story a legitimate big deal regardless of whether the MSM wants it to be a big deal? Or is it a big deal because the MSM is so invested in the idea of bringing Thompson down a few rungs?

Many conservative bloggers are still giving him a pass.

Riehl World View:

As Fred might say, Friends ... the way I see it, we just got done almost sendin' a good man to prison, ... still made quite a mess of his life, I reckon, for nothing more than, well, perhaps nothin' more than mis-remembering a simple conversation, or two. And, now, oh, well, hell, this was about twenty or so years ago, wuddn't it?

Captain Ed: "This story is essentially a yawn."

Powerline blames the media. (No joke!)

What's interesting, I think, is that the news outlets that are pushing this story are not conservative. They seem to think that the story will somehow discredit Thompson among conservatives, presumably because conservatives are too dumb to understand how law firms and the legal process work. The appropriate response from the right would be, I think, a yawn. So far, that's what we've seen.

James Joyner is an exception.

The story itself is rather innocuous; that his first instinct was to lie about it, though, says something about the man’s character. My guess is that this won’t seriously damage his candidacy. After all, most people think “lying politician” is redundant. Still, to the extent that Thompson’s appeal is that he’s not a professional politician, this hurts.

Yuval Levin is also clear-headed.

On the abortion question, Fred Thompson has so far managed to gain the trust of pro-lifers without actually saying anything about either principle or policy—what specifically he believes, or what kind of laws or rules he might support or oppose