Fred Thompson has come under fire from Democrats for saying that Osama bin Laden “is more symbolism than anything else,” and from Republicans for insisting that if the United States captured the terrorist mastermind, he’d receive the benefit of due process of law (as David notes, there’s nothing so unprecedented or outrageous about the latter statement, but hey — it’s Republicans we’re talking about here).
Now RedState’s Erick Erickson, who has sources in the Thompson campaign, is claiming that Thompson never made the two statements in question:
And Fred, being the candidate, must take responsibility. And the campaign, being the campaign, should be questioned about why it is firing staff members to bring on more staff with better experience when the people with better experience are making almost unforgivable mistakes.
You see, I’m told it was Todd Harris who said that capturing Osama would be symbolic and that he should be tried with due process of law. Thompson himself, a day later, said Osama should be killed.
I don’t know who is feeding Erickson this information, but I talked with an AP spokesman, who investigated and confirmed for me that it was indeed Thompson who made the remarks in both cases (and really, how likely is it that two different reporters — in the stories linked above — would be unable to distinguish Old Man Fred from a campaign staffer?).
I presume that Erickson was merely passing along what he was told. But why was he was lied to by his sources? Certainly it looks like there’s still a good deal of tension within the Thompson campaign, as the candidate attempts — clumsily and dishonestly — to repair the damage he has done to himself with these two statements.
Something to say?
