Fred: What Global Warming???

With regard to Rev. Algore's church of global warming, Fred Thompson takes it with a grain of salt.

Rather, Fred takes a no-nonsense approach:

By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 06, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Free market advocates in search of a champion who will take a firm stand against draconian global warming laws, might have one in former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who announced his run for the presidency Wednesday on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

This vote of confidence comes from a Senate colleague, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who believes the weight of scientific evidence has shifted decisively against the notion of human-induced global warming in recent years.

Unfortunately, many Republican and Democratic leaders, as well as leading presidential contenders continue to push for legislation that would "shut down America" in the name of "misguided alarmism," Inhofe told Cybercast News Service.

"The Republicans will need a nominee for president who is willing to tell the truth, and so far the one out there with the most courage is Fred Thompson," said Inhofe. "He is aware of all the issues I've raised on global warming, and right now he's the only one I see who is willing to take this on."

Unlike many of his fellow Republicans, Thompson has demonstrated a willingness to confront elite opinion, Inhofe said. While Thompson is sure to antagonize the news media with his stand on global warming, Inhofe thinks he will find a receptive audience among average Americans.

SNIP

"...it is evident the Tennessee Republican's broadsides against "elite opinion" are beginning to attract attention. "Thompson seems to have taken particular pleasure in mocking global warming," a July 27 Washington Post story asserted.

Back in March, during a radio broadcast, Thompson took issue with those who claim there is a scientific consensus in favor of human-induced global warming.

"Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever," he said. "Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto."

I mean--come on folks--what's there not to like?

Full Speed Ahead, Fred!!

More of Fred on the Issues:

Thompson to shake up the status quo

David Broder had the chance for a two hour conversation with Fred, and had this to say:

The approach Thompson says he's contemplating is one that will step on many sensitive political toes. When he says "we're getting a free ride" fighting a necessary war in Iraq with an undersized military establishment, "wearing out our people and equipment," it sounds like a criticism of the president and the Pentagon.

When he says he would have opposed adding the prescription drug benefit to Medicare, "a $17 trillion add-on to a program that's going bankrupt," he is fighting the bipartisan judgment of the last Congress.

When he says the FBI is perhaps incapable of morphing itself into the smart domestic security agency the country needs, he is attacking another sacred cow.

Thompson repeatedly cites two texts as fueling his concern about the country's future. One is "Government at the Brink," a two-volume report he issued as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee at the start of the Bush administration in 2001 and handed to the new president's budget director as a checklist of urgent management problems.

The difficulties outlined in federal procurement, personnel, finances and information technology remain, Thompson said, and increasingly "threaten national security."

His second sourcebook contains the scary reports from Comptroller General David Walker, the head of the Government Accountability Office, on the long-term fiscal crisis spawned by the aging of the American population and the runaway costs of health care. Walker labels the current patterns of federal spending "unsustainable" and warns that unless action is taken soon to improve both sides of the government's fiscal ledger -- spending and revenue -- the next generation will suffer.

"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges."

Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could ensure a better future for their children.

But these issues -- national security and the fiscal crisis of an aging society with runaway heath-care costs -- "are worth a portion of a man's life. If I can't get elected talking that way, I probably don't deserve to be elected."

Thompson says he feels "free to do it" his own way, and that freedom may just be enough to shake up the presidential race.

Should be an interesting ride, to say the least.

Go get 'em, Fred!