Oh, Those Billing Records

Back on July 7, the Los Angeles Times reported that former Sen. Fred Thompson, the putative last best choice of the GOP presidential field, did lobbying work for a pro-choice organization (and it was dutifully reported here).

The Thompson campaign, not to mention the Orcosphere, demanded proof of this lobbying. "Let's see the billing records," said one commenter here, who also sent the exact same comment to other blogs.

Whatever you say.

Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.

According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2008, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.

Mr. Thompson’s work for the family planning agency has become an issue because he is positioning himself as a faithful conservative who is opposed to abortion.

So what do Mr. Thompson's supporters say now?

Earlier this month, Mr. Thompson disputed accounts by the group’s former president and others, saying through a spokesman that he had “no recollection” of doing anything to aid the group’s efforts to overturn a rule banning federally financed clinics from dispensing information about abortion to pregnant women. At most, said Mr. Thompson’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, he “may have been consulted by one of the firm’s partners who represented this group.”

Yesterday, Mr. Corallo said the family planning group was an Arent Fox client.

“The firm consulted with Fred Thompson,” he said. “It is not unusual for a lawyer to give counsel at the request of colleagues, even when they personally disagree with the issue.”

This is their version of Emily Litella's "Never mind."

What I think is worth noting is that the Thompson camp and their supporters can't admit they might have been a tad premature in their assertion that Mr. Thompson would never have worked for a pro-choice group and hinted darkly that perhaps -- just perhaps -- the records either never existed or were fakes. Now that they've been faced with the proof, it's like "oh, whatever." It's a small gesture, but it says a lot when someone has the courtesy and the maturity to back down and admit they might be wrong.

It seems that Mr. Thompson might have known that these records would inevitably surface.

In a column published on the conservative blog Powerline, Mr. Thompson wrote that in light of lawyer-client confidentiality, it would not be appropriate for him to respond to those who are “dredging up clients — or another lawyer’s clients — that I may have represented or consulted with” 15 or 20 years ago.

If “a client has a legal and ethical right to take a position, then you may appropriately represent him as long as he does not lie or otherwise conduct himself improperly while you are representing him,” he wrote.

That's a perfectly reasonable point to make. And it's even more reasonable to remind the right-wingers of this in light of the digging they did 15 or 20 years ago when the Richard Mellon Scaife-sponsored Arkansas Project went after the Clintons. Back then they believed they had a duty to report whatever they could find about the then-president and his wife, no matter how bizarre, far-fetched, or just plain loopy. Now they've had an apparent change of heart? I'm glad to hear it. Does that mean we won't be hearing any more stupid stories about John Edwards and his haircuts or Mitt Romney and Max Factor? Don't count on it.

What it means is that the Republicans are so desperate to keep their grip on power that they will adapt their principles -- the ones that they say make them oh so morally superior than everybody else -- to fit the moment. They'll back an automaton like Romney or a pro-gay-rights, pro-choice, pro-gun control ex-mayor like Giuliani (who on occasion just can't resist that urge to feel pretty) to replace their current comic book sidekick Commander Guy and act as if it's not a big deal that Fred Thompson actually did something that flies in the face of their orthodoxy.

Well, I suppose when the leader of the pack in the polls of likely GOP candidates is "None of the Above," you'll try anything. Except to admit that you're wrong. That's a lesson they've learned all too well from the current administration.