Maryland for Fred Thompson

I thought Fred handled himself very well. He remains true his beliefs and has not wavered or flip-flopped during the campaign.

So, how do you think he did? Leave a comment below and let me know what you thought.

Here are some highlights from the Meet the Press interview:

• On the crisis in Pakistan:
  

  I’d be saying learn as much as you can about the situation to all my people. And I know Secretary Rice is doing that. We’ve got two competing serious considerations there. One is the rule of law, which we’ve got to stand for, which he’s going against right now. And the other is the fact that it’s one of the most potentially dangerous situations in the world for us right now. He is an ally in, in a, in a very sparsely populated place as far as allies are concerned. There’re not many of them in that part of the world. Even parts of his own government do not have our interests at heart. There are radical Muslim elements there. There are terrorist elements there that are trying to, to apparently get control of the government. I do not know exactly what Musharraf sees or thinks he sees to cause him to do what he has done, but we need to understand that this is a nuclear country. We could face a real nightmare scenario by seeing these radical elements, or these terrorist sympathizers, take control of that government and have that nuclear capability there on the border of, of Afghanistan when we’ve got so many troops there.

• On Iraq:
  

  I, I think that, I think that we’re making substantial progress there, and this would not be—nobody knows what’s going to happen, but this would be the worst time in the world to start talking about deadlines or cutting off funding or getting out prematurely. I would like to see nothing more than our troops start coming out of there, but as a part of a success scenario. And I think that’s a realistic scenario that the generals on the ground there have in mind.
  …
  The stakes are too high, Tim. It’s not, it’s not a matter of, of just Iraq. The—we’re being tested. The whole world is watching to see whether or not the American people have the will and the ability, the unity, the determination to, to succeed in any front that we happen to be engaged in, and this is a front in much larger war.

• On Osama bin Laden:
  

  Well, again, let, let, let me make the point. I’ve never been accused of being soft on Osama bin Laden. What I think sometimes happens in this country is that we fixate on a personality. And even someone as, as, as, as evil as this man, we need to understand, if he goes—if he’s killed, someone will take his place. It’s almost like that—the focus is so much on him that we think our problem will pretty much go away if we get him. Getting him is important. It’s important because he’s the head of this operation right now. It’s important because of symbolism and lots of other reasons. No question about that. But the notion that, that, that our problems are pretty much going to be solved when he goes away—remember, al-Zarqawi in, in Iraq, when, when we killed him? It was, it was a important thing to do. Things got worse for us after that for a while. I mean, we, we can’t be fixated—it, it minimizes the nature of the problem. We’re in a global conflict now. We have been for some time. Iraq is a part of that conflict. And, unfortunately, regardless of what happens in Iraq, I believe it’s going to extend for some time to come, and we need to understand the severity of it. And that was my point.

• On Iran:
  

  MR. RUSSERT: Would you make a pledge that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you were president?

  MR. THOMPSON: That would be my intent. If—I, I would make a pledge to do everything that I could to keep it from happening.
  …
  MR. THOMPSON: Yeah. Well, sometimes you’re faced with two very bad decisions, and those are two very bad decisions. But what happens if, if a country like this, who talks in terms of the 12th imam coming back and maybe millions of people dying and so forth, including their own people. It would be, you know, on balance, it would be apparently OK with them as long as, as they would do the right thing, you know, from their own warped religious standpoint. And what would happen if they, if they sent a, a, a, a missile with a nuclear warhead and, and hit Israel? What would happen if they did the same to our people in the field with some kind of attacks by a nuclear weapon? What would happen then? What would happen if they held that whole region hostage in terms of oil? And, and, and, and oil, you know, which now, you know, $90 to $100 a barrel, much, much higher than that. Those are bad, bad circumstances and situations. I mean, that’s why most people with good judgment don’t run for president, I suppose.

• On improving intelligence:
  

  But let’s get back to, to something else again. The major effort we need to be making now is to improve our intelligence and improve our human intelligence and make sure that we do better next time than, than we have done in the past. You can’t do anything in terms of making the decision as to what to do or how to carry it out in terms of where these facilities are. What about if we attacked them and found out that we only did half the job because our intelligence was faulty as to where the facilities were? We’d have the worst of both worlds. So these are tough, tough decisions. All these considerations have to be on the table, and the situation next year at this time will be different than it is today.

  MR. RUSSERT: And if you go to the world and the country and say, “We’re going to do this to Iran,” the response from some would be “Is that the same intelligence that gave us Iraq?”

  MR. THOMPSON: Exactly. That’s the price you pay when you operate on the basis of faulty intelligence. But you have to operate on the basis of the intelligence that you have. And, in our case, you know, as far as Iraq was concerned it was almost unanimous. I mean, I thought they had weapons of mass destruction there on the day that, that we went in. You know, the, the leading Democrats on the Intelligence Committee thought the same thing. Just about every country that’s our, our ally, their intelligence thought the same thing, too. So it’s always going to be murky, but we’ve, we’ve got to make it as clear as we possibly can because these decision are the most vital decisions that a country can possibly make, and it’s got to be maked—made on the best intelligence that we can get, and it’s got to be better than what it’s been in the past.

• On his health:
  

  MR. RUSSERT: You’ve lost a considerable lot of weight. Is it health-related?

  MR. THOMPSON: Coming from you, I consider that compliment, Tim, but no, no, it’s not health-related. I, you know, we had a diet around our house that was imposed a while back and, basically, you know, if it tastes real good, don’t eat it, you know. But I was encouraged by, by my wife and other people in the health field, you know, to, to watch my cholesterol, to watch my weight, to exercise more. I exercise on a regular basis, and I eat better than I ever have….

You can read the entire transcript or watch Fred’s interview with Tim Russert on the Meet the Press website.