I hate playing the "if this was a black guy" angle when discussing stories in the news, but sometimes, if the shoe fits, it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, and [insert your favorite cliche here], then goshdarnit, it is what it is.
Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.Let's keep it real here: as old and as worldly as Fred Thompson is, there's no way in h-e-double hockeysticks that he didn't know his boy had a record. No way.
Thompson selected the businessman, Philip Martin, to raise seed money for his White House bid. Martin is one of four campaign co-chairmen and the head of a group called the "first day founders." Campaign aides jokingly began to refer to Martin, who has been friends with Thompson since the early 1990s, as the head of "Thompson's Airforce."
Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation.
Thompson's campaign said the candidate was not aware of the multiple criminal cases, for which Martin served no jail time. All are described in public court records.
Even if he didn't know, how is it even possible that you hire a "longtime friend" to be your campaign chairman when you're gunning for that Number One Spot, and you don't even consider running a background check on him? Thompson's been a Senator before, and while he hasn't been President before, he has played one on TV. Clearly, he knows the rules. He just chose to conveniently overlook them.
If this guy is even loosely involved in fundraising for Thompson, isn't it possible some of the money Thompson is using to fund his campaign is tainted? This would hardly be new news (see: Hillary Clinton/Norman Hsu) but what's most amazing is how the media is dancing around this subject and playing it as "an innocent mistake".
Bullcrap.
You guys might remember several months ago, when the news caught wind of a small passage in Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father that mentioned he did a few lines and took a few pulls of the sticky icky as a confused teen in Hawaii. Never mind the fact that this was disclosed by Obama, in a book written decades ago, about a time in his life when he was struggling with his racial identity. The press had a field day with this. I remember callers to a local conservative radio show questioning whether he would "revert to drug use" if under pressure as President and whether he was a "drug dealer himself". This story played out for weeks in the news, and the man was practically labeled a crackhead.
Now, imagine if Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, was suddenly outed as having dealt drugs back in the 80's. Hell, imagine if Obama's brother in law, or 3rd cousin on his aunt's side was outed as a dopeboy. The internet would be going nuts, and they would probably be asking Barry for a "specimen" right about now.
Fred Thompson? Not so much.
I'm just sayin', something about this is very, very wrong.
Thompson Adviser Has Criminal Past [WashPost via CBS]
