James, your articulation is not only clear and reasonable it is likely held by lots of Republicans. But that’s not what Thompson’s clarification says. He doesn’t do what Romney has done which is to say “over time…”; his clarification is a flat statement as to what his position is now. I think the reason for the clarification is that in the debate– I thought I was not listening closely enough but the transcript indicates he was almost excruciatingly unclear even if you were listening intently — he sounded too muddled and too much like Rudy. They therefore put out a non-nuanced statement that read literally(without the Antle clarification) doesn’t jive with the debate comments, to the extent you can understand them. On the larger issue of Thompson, I understand his supporters’ frustration. As I note here, he says many of the right things but oddly, for a performer, makes little impression.