The American Spectator

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p> WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? br> Re: Michael Tanner's At Last a Small-Government Conservative? : /p> p>How can you almost completely leave Ron Paul out of the picture, when he is the one most geared towards putting government back into its limited place? I know he's against the war and such, but an imperialist agenda also qualifies as big government spending, as well. I think it's very inaccurate to portray Fred Thompson as the only Republican federalist out there. br> -- Paul Melnyk /p>

Michael Tanner's comparison of Fred Thompson to the other candidates is based only on what Candidate Thompson has said, or what he supported as 1% of the Senate. A look at what he has actually done would also be helpful.

Senators do not "do things." They make laws that force other people to "do things." Before his eight years in the Senate, Thompson spent 20 years as a lobbyist; he was not a lobbyist for smaller government. His mission was to grab the biggest piece of government pie he could.

It is true that the law enforcement agencies run by Thompson have never committed any abuses, because he has never run a law enforcement agency. The health insurance structure adopted by the state he governed cannot be compared to Hillarycare, because he has never governed. The companies he has managed have never had a production shortfall, because he has never been engaged in production.

p>If you were a large shareholder of a major public corporation, would you want Fred Thompson to be its CEO? Of course not. No responsible board of directors of a huge enterprise would hire a CEO that had never been in an executive position. It would be a mistake for us to hire the chief executive of the most important enterprise on Earth, the United States, based only on his recitation of talking points crafted to please a small government audience. br> --

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