A disturbing conversation with Fred Thompson

Saturday afternoon as I was driving to church, my cell phone rang. It was the Fred Thompson campaign, letting me know that the senator would be doing a meet-and-greet at a cafe in Indianola, a Des Moines suburb not far from where I live, this morning about eleven. Could I make it?

I made it a point to be there. After all, I've been a Thompson supporter since... well, long before the beginning. I wanted to show the colors, as it were, and help out at least by being a friendly face at a public event. Besides, its frustrating seeing all of those Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney bumper stickers without being able to respond in kind. Maybe, I thought, they'll bring a few.

But I also had another motive. As regular readers of this blog will recall, I was quite disturbed by Sen. Thompson's statement a while back that the Federal government should not have gotten involved in the Schaivo affair. The statement contained enough ambiguity, in retrospect, that it wasn't clear whether Thompson was simply stating the common sense principle that, in general, laws governing end-of-life decisions should be made at the state level, or whether he was actually endorsing the active euthanasia legalized by Cruzan v. Director, In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration of food and water is a form of medical treatment, and thus can be legally withheld on the same basis that life-extending medication can be withheld or a respirator turned off. Effectively Cruzan not only blurred but abolished the critical distinction between letting a terminal patient die due to the natural course of his or her illness, and intervening to actively cause the death of a patient who might not be terminally ill in the first place.

Terri Schaivo wasn't. That seemed to me to be a crucial distinction between her case and, for example, the situation Sen. Thompson himself faced when compelled to end-of-life decisions in the tragic case of his own daughter several years ago.

I got to the cafe early, and struck up a conversation with some of the Thompson campaign's advance staff. I idly remarked that FDT hadn't been in his best form when he'd reacted recently to a Fox News reporter's observation that the next president of the United States had a tight schedule by saying, "Yes- and so do I." The remark was widely reported all over the world as an indication that Fred Thompson didn't expect to win. "You can't say things like that!," someone on his national staff reportedly told him afterward."

"Oh, yes," the staffer told me this morning. "He was cracking wise. Fred has quite a sense of humor."

Uh... sure. I didn't say so out loud, but it seemed to me at the very least a matter of his cracking rather unwise. In fact, very unwise.

The folksy, affable candidate actually arrived a few minutes early. Contrary to what I'd been led to expect by the media, he neither rambled nor bored anybody. He talked in rather specific and pointed terms about the need to upgrade our military and intelligence capabilities- which would mean spending more money on such matters, rather than less.

He took us on a quick tour of the Middle East, discussing the implications of the policies of the governments of Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. He warned against been seduced by calls to establish total energy independence in the short term, warning that it simply wasn't going to happen any time soon and opining that our best course is to do the best we can in that direction over the long haul rather than to expect miracles overnight.

Generally, Thompson's presentation was geared to the notion that, whether on social security or energy or health care (for which his prescription was revising the tax structure to reward people for making economically smart health care choices and trusting the market to drive costs down), people were entitled to be told the truth that they might well not want to hear- but which he proposed to tell them anyway.

It was a good performance, and well-received. But I had my question to ask the senator about Cruzan and the attendent issues. I wasn't called upon in the brief question-and-answer period, so i made it a point to be in his path as he worked his way toward the door.

"Senator," I said, as I shook his hand, "I have a quick question, if I might."

To his credit, he immediately stopped and gave me his undivided attention.

"It concerns your remark concerning the roll of the Federal government in cases in which people who can't speak for themselves are ordered starved to death on hearsay evidence given by the people who have the most to gain from their deaths."

"The Schaivo case," he immediately responded.

"Sure," I said. "I can understand your wanting state law to govern end of life issues as a rule. And I know that you, as a father, had to face some tough decisions of that kind yourself a few years ago. But my question is whether there isn't a Federal issue- namely, the sick person's rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution- that might justify a Federal role."

"Do you think Federal courts would do a better job of protecting the rights of such people than local courts?," he rhetorically asked me.

"Well, the problem is that in such cases, those representing the people who want life terminated in the initial trial- the trial that determines fact, and as a practical matter the only one that actually considers questions of fact- are quite often well-paid specialists in such cases, and the people on the other side are often ordinary lawyers who just aren't in a position to give an equivalent level of advocacy."

"Really?" he said, his eyebrows arching. "You think all specialists favor the side that wants to terminate support?"

"That's not what I said, Senator," I replied. "I said that the people who represent that side are nearly always specialists. Doesn't that raise a question of these people being deprived of life without due process of law?

"Of course they receive due process," Senator Thompson replied. "In the state and local courts.

"Listen," he continued. "You can't possibly know on the basis of reading about a case in the newspapers as much as a family's doctor and mom and dad know. They know how much pain the person is suffering. They know the prognosis. They know a lot more than you can possibly know by reading about the case in a newspaper."

All of which, of course, was perfectly true. It just wasn't relevant to my question.

So I tried again. "Sure," I said. "I recognize all of those things. But that's not what I'm asking about. I'm asking about Cruzan v. Director. I'm asking about treating food and water as the equivalent of medical treatment."

He then essentially repeated what he'd said before. To his credit, he was clearly becoming a little emotional- not surprisingly, of course. He reminded me that he'd been the dad of a person in that situation, and that while there was no disagreement in his family, these were matters best left to the family. He added that he would not have his committment to life questioned, either concerning issues at life's beginning, or at its end.

"I'm not questioning your committment to life, Senator," I replied. "Well, alright then," he said- and headed on toward the door.

And I really wasn't. What I questioned- and now question even more- was whether he understands the implications of his own position for the respect with which we treat human life.

I was standing next to an Australian reporter, who- along with a reporter from the AP- had been taking down our whole conversation. "He didn't answer my question," I told the Aussie lady. "He didn't answer mine, either," she replied.

I didn't hear what she had asked him.

My question- which I guess maybe I could have put more clearly- was finally whether Senator Thompson really didn't see a difference between letting a dying person die of natural causes, possibly by withholding actual medical care, and making a person who is not dying of natural causes die unnaturally by staring him or her to death. But as happens all too often in such disagreements, we were holding two different conversations. It strikes me- again, to Fred Thompson's credit- that he responded genuinely and from the heart, as a grieving father whose own pain perhaps blinds him to a huge ethical distinction which, after all, did not arise in the case of his daughter. But it still causes me to wonder whether, in conscience, I can continue to treat Sen. Thompson- rather than, say, Mike Huckabee or even Mitt Romney- as my first choice for the 2008 nomination. They, after all, understand the distinction between allowing nature to take its course and actual euthanasia- between decisions such as the Thompson family may have faced, and what Dr. Kevorkian was put in jail for.

I have no doubt that I could happily and easily support Fred Thompson if he were to be the nominee. And I continue to like and admire the man, whose public career I've followed ever since he was in the Senate. I'm feeling very conflicted right now, and I'm going to have to think this over.

I'm more convinced than ever, after having my talk with him this morning, that Fred Thompson is a good man. The question is whether I might not be more comfortable, here at a stage in which there are viable alternatives, supporting a candidate who sees the truly vital ethical distinction which Fred Thompson apparently does not.

Comments

Pomeranus said…
Thank you for asking Sen. Thompson important questions with understanding for his personal anguish over decisions he had to make. Even though he appears not to have understood you concern, he needed to hear it. Perhaps he will ponder these things in private and come to a deeper insight.

Once again, thank you for being a courageous and compassionate citizen.
A. Renee Daley said…
Mr Waters;

Thompson did answer your question. You just didn't care for his answer. It wasn't what you wanted to hear, so it is easier for you to blame Fred Thompson instead of looking at the bigger picture.

When you have to tell the Senator that you're not questioning his commitment to life, then you are questioning his commitment.

It's no different than a White person pointing out the fact they have Black friends to prove they're not racist.

Pandering to the Religious Right is not part of Thompson's platform. Nor should it be part of the GOP platform, regardless of what James Dobson, and others like him think. Hyper-focus on one issue does a great disservice to the Conservative movement in this country.

Are you willing to sacrifice the war, just to win the battle?
Carl Vehse said…
"He didn't answer my question"

The AP news report,"Thompson to Be Endorsed by Right to Life", by Liz Sidoti, didn't report on Fred not answering your question, but did report what Fred said about states legislating abortions:

Asked Monday whether he would support a state whose citizens through the Legislature chose to permit abortion, Thompson said: "Sometimes states have a right to do the things that even Fred Thompson disagrees with."

Still the claim is that the National Right to Life Committee will endorse Thompson.

And Fred's answer to you was very similar to the answer he gave Tim Russert in his Meet the Press interview on Nov. 4.

In his Nov. 8 column, "Fred Thompson's stunning error", Robert Novak comments on another response from Fred Thompson in his Nov. 4 MTP interview:

Fred Thompson was well into a prolonged dialogue about abortion with interviewer Tim Russert on NBC's ''Meet the Press'' on Sunday when he said something stunning for social conservatives: ''I do not think it is a wise thing to criminalize young girls and perhaps their parents as aiders and abettors.'' He went further: ''You can't have a [federal] law'' that ''would take young, young girls . . . and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail.''

Those comments sent e-mails flying across the country reflecting astonishment and rage by pro-life Republicans. No anti-abortion legislation ever has proposed criminal penalties against women having abortions, much less their parents. Jailing women is a spurious issue raised by abortion rights activists.

Thompson's comments revealed astounding lack of sensitivity about the abortion issue....

In his first question on abortion, Russert asked Thompson whether, as a candidate, he could run on the 2004 Republican platform that endorsed a ''human life'' constitutional amendment banning all abortions. ''No,'' Thompson replied, suddenly monosyllabic. ''You would not?'' ''No,'' said Thompson, adding ''that's been my position the entire time I've been in politics.'' In fact, every Republican platform starting in 1980 has endorsed such an amendment and every Republican candidate has been able to run on it.


I wonder if the National Right to Life Committee watched that Meet the Press show.
Dear Ms. Daley,

The answer Sen. Thompson gave- if it is truly well thought through and forms an integrated part of his philosophy on end-of-life issues- utterly abrogates any claim Sen. Thompson might have to committment to the cause of life. I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt on that score; I am sorry that you are not so charitable.

The issue here is not "pandering to the religious Right." The issue
is whether Fred Thompson is an utter hypocrite for claiming to be pro-life while holding the position he enunciated to me, or whether he is dealing emotionally with the issue, and so takes his inconsistent position with regard to the right-to-kill

The issue is that Jack Kevorkian was indeed put in prison for doing nothing more or less than the Supreme Court illogically declared legal in Cruzan, and that Sen. Thompson's "conservative" position stands in direct opposition to, not the ravings of a marginal "religious Right," but two two thousand years of Western ethical and legal thought.

If, as I choose to believe, Sen. Thompson truly believes that his position is consistent with his oft-expressed committment-
which I prefer to believe is sincere- to the cause of life, he has a great deal of re-assessing to do. If you are right, and upon reflection he truly regards legalized euthanasia as consistent with his professed committment to life, you're right. The sincerity of that committment would become impossible to sustain- and whether Sen. Thompson "will have his committment to life questioned," there is no longer any question of Sen. Thompson having a committment to life.

This issue, and those like it, are the war. If you truly are willing to sacrifice concerns about the sanctity life either at it's beginning or its end- something Sen. Thompson himself insists that he is not-for the sake of other issues, your candidate is not Fred Thompson, but Rudy Giuliani.

Carl, returning the question of abortion to the states- where it should have been all along- is the
only realistic option if one truely wants to overturn Roe. An amendment banning abortion is simply not going to pass in this universe.