fred_thompson.jpgFred Thompson has an identity crisis.

He wants us all to think he’s this studly, sturdy, tough-as-nails guy, the Sgt. Rock of politicians, who says what he means and means what he says, never at a loss, always in control, just like District Attorney Arthur Branch, the guy he plays on Law and Order.

But of course, Arthur Branch is a fictional character. So, to a large extent, is Fred Thompson. And just as Fred doesn’t look quite so studly without his makeup — and just as he doesn’t sound so self-assured and in control without a set of lines on a cue card to recite — his job history shows Fred to be a somewhat different, and more pliable, guy — especially where ethics are concerned.

You see, even though Fred likes to bill himself as a Former United States Senator, that’s only a small part of his résumé. Most of his adult life has been spent as either a lobbyist or an actor — which, when you think about it, comes to the same thing. But he really doesn’t like it when people bring up the fact that he spent twenty years on Capitol Hill as a very high-paid lobbyist. That’s not the image he wants to project, not now. Lobbyists are slick and smooth and wear expensive suits, not the polo shirts and cowboy boots Fred uses to project a good-ole-boy, straight-talkin’, not-polished-enough-to-lie image.

Lobbyists will say whatever pleases their audience of the moment, with position papers that can be either pro- or anti-abortion, depending on the crowd in the theater. You can be paid to represent a pro-choice group when arm-twisting congressmembers and then turn around and declare your opposition to abortion. You can be the mouthpiece for dictators and thugs and then talk about your dedication to freedom and democracy.

In short, just like any other actor, you can be whatever the folks paying your salary want you to be.

It must be freeing, not to have any firm principles or ethics. Other than the love of money.

UPDATE: A commenter has taken me to task for picking on lobbyists. And yes, lobbying doesn’t have to be a dishonorable profession — ethical lobbyists hated Jack Abramoff because he not only gouged his Indian-tribe clients with astronomical fees (well over $60 million worth), but then stabbed them in the back by lobbying against them.

But Fred Thompson, as a lobbyist for most of the years since 1975, understands public perception. And if he really thought that his lobbying career was something he thought would go over well with the public, why isn’t that the most prominent part of his CV?  Instead, he only brought it up recently in response to its having been brought up by other folks.  [And another commenter, who himself was a lobbyist for a nonprofit org, states that the current lobbying setup is -- by design -- "ethically corrupt to the core".] 

Oh, and not to mention Fred’s pretending to be a Beltway outsider, which is the complete opposite of the facts.  He’s been a GOP operative and DC insider since shortly after he got out of law school in 1967. He was named an assistant USA in 1969 under Nixon, then headed up Howard Baker’s 1972 Senate campaign and went to DC with him full-time after Baker’s win. He’s been a lobbyist since 1975, and a Senator when he wasn’t lobbying, with an acting career shoehorned into all of that to boot.

Oh, and his current (and much younger) wife’s a hardcore DC insider, too. If he were any more inside, he’d turn into a black hole.

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