reality-based educator

The LA Times reported on Friday that Fred Thompson helped a family planning group lobby the first Bush administration to ease the "gag rule" that bars health clinics that receive federal money from offering abortion counseling to pregnant women. Jonathan Martin at The Politico says here's how you'll know if the story is potentially deadly to Thompson's support from social conservatives:

Recognizing the danger the story poses, Thompson's camp pushed back hard, offering an outright denial that he ever worked for the organization. But it's been picked up by the AP wire, has moved on Drudge and the NYT, playing catch-up, ran with their own version this morning, also.

For Thompson, the news is threatening because it weaves together two of his biggest vulnerabilities to date -- that the red truck-driving good ole boy also happens to be a longtime Washington lobbyist and that his current abortion denunciations don't jibe with previous views.

Some social conservative leaders -- desperate for "option d" -- have pinned their hopes on Thompson with little regard to his past stances. If they respond -- as some Thompson defenders already have -- by attacking the attackers, we'll know it's true love. That is to say, if the specter of Thompson lobbying for an abortion rights group isn't enough to cool their ardor, nothing will.

Which just goes to prove that not only is Fred Thompson a fucking hypocrite, so are most of his social conservative, "pro-life" supporters.