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Senator Fred Thompson:

An Abusive Child in a World of Men

Fred Thompson - An American Disgrace

Friday, October 10th 1997: Senator Fred Thompson sank to unprecedented lows yesterday. What little respect I had for him is gone. Here is a Senator - a man, cloaked in a huckster-love for democracy, who delighted in destroying a much younger man, Richard Sullivan who appeared, broken as only Washington can break you, before Thompson's trumped up committee yesterday futilely attempting to emulate the strength of Harold Ickes.

He was no Ickes, and Thompson knew that Sullivan, the former fundraising director of the Democratic National Committee was weak. Sullivan had undergone a frightening pummeling by Thompson's own neo-nazi inquisitors over several months. He had been humiliated over and over, visited in the night by federal marshalls, lied to by all around him, used by powerful allies, and finally thrown to the wolves. Now he was watching his legal career slip from his grasp.

Richard Sullivan - A broken man

Sullivan, pale as he read his opening remarks, stammered, broke down in tears at one point and, faltering, pleaded -- almost begging -- with the Republicans on the panel to stop using him as a political whipping boy -- Attempting to remind the blood-thirsty partisans that he was a human being served no purpose.

Stung by Harold Ickes the day before, the majority were salivating to throttle a broken man.

The issues? Whether Sullivan tried to get a wealthy foreign businesswoman to support Teamster President Ron Carey's re-election and whether Carey's people had offered a quid pro quo to the DNC and the Clinton campaign that went something like this: You get people to give Carey's campaign some money and we'll get extra teamster political money to you.

As usual the Republicans proved nothing. But of course, that wasn't their mission. Yesterday, their mission was to link Sullivan to three union-linked defendants who recently plead guilty -- on unrelated charges -- in New York federal court. Thompson, and chief humbug Arlen Specter - who used to travel around Pennsylvania with matched creme colored Halston suede luggage - knew that. Yet they threatened Sullivan, frightened him, berated him -- and had this been the 18th Century, would have stood him stocks.

Fred Thompson has proved to be a villain worthy of comparison to Joe McCarthy. He's unfair, boorish, and almost schizophrenic in demeanor. He revels in the power of a minor player suddenly thrust by serendipity into the national spotlight. He is immature and unworthy. His own party leaders have abandoned him. He's typical story in Washington -- A boor who accidentally finds himself in a gentlemen's club.

SpecterSmithNicklesDomenici

The Abettors

Of course, Thompson isn't the only one. He's surrounded by hypocrite aiders and self-important abetters. Take Arlen Specter for instance. Here's a man who actually thinks he could be president. He's got an exploratory group running in Philadelphia. In my opinion, the only thing Specter has going for him is his uncanny physical resemblance to Richard Nixon. He's a pretend patrician, and imposter and a man who himself entered the spotlight yesterday for taking $5,000 in laundered money from a garbage company. Then there's the other presidential pretender - Bob Smith of New Hampshire. A political lummox and the laughing stock of the senate press corp. There's Thad Cochran, who presides and well-emulates his state of Mississippi, which has the highest rate of illiteracy in the nation. Pete Domenici, the Reagan apologist who seems almost senile these days is not to be believed. And last but not least, Oklahoma "Oakie" Senator Don Nickles, proud proprietor of the "Don Nickles Professional Cleaning Service" - and a sure-bet target for defeat next time out.

But it's Thompson who has the power, and it's Thompson who's the prime abuser.

Witness always-courtly John Glenn, pleading with Thompson to enforce and issue Democrat subpoenas for Republican campaign malfeasors. Thompson, a stranger to elegant power, basks in his teenage bravado -- refusing even a vote on the minority request. A Jesse Helms in the making -- although that's an insult to Helms. Thompson, sitting on his overstuffed behind cavorting with his ego, slapping himself on the back, apologist for the soon-to-be criminal Haley Barbour. Thompson, the extraordinary hypocrite, flaunting his pathetic control over a relatively unimportant sub-committee - lying consciously through his teeth rather than seeking a scintilla of truth.

John Glenn - a gentleman

I submit to you that, if anyone was paying attention, Thompson could be the most dangerous and destructive force in American politics today. He has proudly presided over a sham, a theater of the absurd. But worse, he has done so in the name of justice. Thompson eagerly participates in artifice and charade, mocking the very system that put him where he is. Sadly, like a child taking its first steps, he delights in insulting his Democrat colleagues, most of them highly respected members of the Club.

One only hopes that Tennessee voters will take notice of his elaborate pretense and oust him at their earliest opportunity. Before that opportunity arises however, I hope that some wiser Republican members of his committee and Senate Majority Leader Lott will take him aside and box his adolescent ears.

Perhaps they'll realize that it's one thing to play politics but quite another to openly obstruct justice for purely self-involved reasons.

Soon to be audited?