The story cites “several Republican officials close to Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign.” Galen told me, “I’m a Republican official in the Thompson campaign, and I’m denying it.” Galen also said that no one inside the campaign was a source for the story. “I can’t put enough adjectives in front of the ‘deny’ to accurately describe how vehemently I’m denying the story,” he said.

Wow, great sourcing. And this is what all the glee about Fred Thompson’s demise is about?

Can I ask why HotAir staff and Michelle Malkin are using the Politico as a reliable source for campaign news?

Also, back to the sarcastic “blame the media!” talking point. No one objectively looking at this thinks that the Politico (which was the source for the “silly hat” dishonest hit piece on Fred Thompson) did not put this out there the day before the Caucus in order to depress Fred Thompson supporters into switching their vote at the last minute to someone else?

I really don’t get how a blog and a media woman who follow the media so closely cannot pick up on obvious media bias and agenda-driven reporting in this campaign. It’s like people have completely forgotten the biased and agenda-driven media coverage about pretty much everything for the past 7 years.

You can simultaneously hold the opinions that (1) Fred Thompson has run a lackluster campaign and (2) that the media has been doing its best to sink his campaign, because they don’t want a Conservative on the GOP ticket. (Just like one can say there were mistakes made in the execution of the war effort, but the completely biased and agenda driven media coverage and the Democrats’ undermining of the effort along the way went a long way to contributing to the war efforts’ mistakes as well) But for some reason, some people don’t want to do that.

Conspiracy? No. But, I am beginning to believe that Michelle Malkin and the HotAir staff are doing the same thing as Rush Limbaugh. Rush has not endorsed anyone, but he highly critcizes John McCain and Mike Huckabee as not being Conservatives and calls Fred Thompson the only Conservative in the race. He has spoken highly of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani on their strong points. Thus, one can infer that Rush is pushing Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, in that order, without actually coming out and explicitly endorsing anyone. With Michelle Malkin and the HotAir staff, they are the most highly critical of Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, especially Thompson with their giving so much credence to hit pieces by The Politico and meaningless things like “silly hats”. Thus, one can infer that Michelle Malkin and the HotAir staff are pushing other candidates than Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

It is a trick the mass media does all the time. They write favorably biased agenda driven pieces about the Democrats and unfavorable pieces about Republicans. They write favorable pieces about our enemies and unfavorable pieces about our own military. They pump up the anti-war effort and fail to cover the Gathering of Eagles. They pump up the pro-abortion marches and fail to cover the Pro-Life marches. They prop up anti-war military families and fail to cover support-the-war-effort military families. And on and on and on…

I see the same thing happening here at HotAir and with Michelle Malkin. And I can say that while also acknowledging that Fred Thompson has not run a great campaign. But his lackluster campaign has also been deliberately torpedoed even further by mass media lack of coverage, a constant meme of “lazy” and “no fire in the belly” and hit pieces by The Politico, picked up and given credence by bloggers.

All of this is fine, so long as we know the agendas of people. If I know that Michelle Malkin and the HotAir staff don’t like Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson because of X,Y and Z policies, then fine. Then I know why they are doing meaningless hit pieces and constantly running very critical pieces. But, as far as I know, I haven’t seen any criticisms from Michelle Malkin or the HotAir staff on Fred Thompson’s policies, only his “laziness”, “fire in the belly” and disliking his “silly hat rule”. One would think that if Michelle Malkin and the HotAir staff liked Fred Thompson’s policies, they would be helping him along with favorable coverage. But that is not happening. In fact, it is just the opposite.

If I have missed where Michelle Malkin and the HotAir staff have raised criticisms and worries about Fred Thompson’s policies, or have just expressed a lack of trust on something, please link to the post where this occurs and I will acknowledge my error in missing them.

Michael in MI on January 3, 2008 at 11:35 AM

All you self-employed people… you suck!

The housewife, you get off the hook. My mom was a housewife and I cherish all the time I got to spend with her growing up and her being completely involved with my education and at school with such things as Mother’s club and going on field trips and then always being there when I got home to ask how my day was and then make sure I did my homework, then checked my homework and talked about it with me, before I even thought about going outside to play. We need more women like that who don’t look down upon the occupation of full-time-mother/housewife.

Back to you self-employed people. Just kidding earlier. I envy you. I’m early in my career (graduated college in May 1999, started first job in Sept 1999), so maybe I can look forward to one day being self-employed in my area of expertise and joining you guys in slacking off. :)

Okay, lunch over. Time to listen to Rush and back to work. Hopefully back later…

Michael in MI on January 3, 2008 at 12:12 PM

By Michelle Malkin • January 3, 2008 10:52 AM You know how I feel about the GOP’s open borders drag queens. Roy Beck of the grass-roots immigration watchdog, NumbersUSA, weighs in with an Iowa caucus-day e-mail missive today on the presidential race and immigration. GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter wins the group’s highest overall rating, and deservedly so. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney earn the next-highest rating.

WHOA!! That’s NOT what I see at all. What up???

Ex-tex on January 3, 2008 at 3:06 PM

Unless there is some weighting system to each of the categories, here is what I counted for Thompson/Romney:

Thompson: Excellent (6), Good (8), Fair (1), Poor (1)
Romney: Excellent (5), Good (5), Fair (1), Poor (3), Bad (2)

I don’t see how that makes Thompson’s and Romney’s ratings equivalent on illegal immigration. But, like I said, there may be weighting of each category.

As far as which categories that Romney is better than Thompson, there are only 3, 2 of them being EXCELLENT vs GOOD and the last being GOOD vs Fair.

As far as which categories that Thompson is better than Romney, there are 7, including 2 where Thompson is GOOD vs Romney is bad.

I’d like to know how they came up with an equivalent rating for Thompson and Romney, because just looking at the chart, it seems clear that Thompson has a much better rating than Romney.

Michael in MI on January 3, 2008 at 11:48 PM