Fred Thompson scores the coveted National Right To Life Committee endorsement, prompting outrage among Mitt Romney supporters. You know it’s bad when even a major right-to-life group won’t vote for a Mormon.
The endorsement is even stranger, considering National Right To Life General Counsel James Bopp Jr. is working for the Romney campaign. It was also a slap in the face to former Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, now second in the Iowa polls. Some have speculated the Committee made a purely pragmatic choice, feeling Thompson was the most likely to beat pro-life Rudy Giuliani.
If that’s the case, they may regret the divisive decision, now that Giuliani has been rolled into the juicy Judith Regan-Bernard Kerik-News Corp. scandal:
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Publisher Judith Regan, fired last year from News Corp.'s HarperCollins unit, claims her dismissal was part of a “deliberate smear campaign'' aimed at protecting presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.
Regan, former president of HarperCollins' ReganBooks division, sued her former employer for defamation in state court in New York, seeking at least $100 million in damages. She claims in her complaint that News Corp. tried to destroy her reputation because she has information about former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik that would be harmful to ex-New York Mayor Giuliani and his presidential campaign.
“The smear campaign was necessary to advance News Corp.'s political agenda, which has long centered on protecting Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions,'' Regan said in the complaint filed yesterday.
As a sidebar, I’d like to point out that this is a perfect example of why deregulating media ownership is such a bad idea. Rupert Murdoch has far too much power as it is, and I don’t see the free hand of the market doing anything to rein that in. Now this whackadoodle Australian billionaire is picking our presidents?
According to the New York Times, Regan claims in her suit that a News Corp. “senior executive”...
... encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.
[...]
One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.
Grab the popcornl this one’s going to be fun to watch.
