April 22, 2011

National Review
Earlier this week, Fred Thompson sought to dispel a story that in 2007, as he campaigned for president, he tooled around the Iowa State Fair in a golf cart as he wore Gucci shoes. Although he was whisked to an interview in a golf cart, he writes, he spent the day on his feet, which have never worn Guccis. Also this week, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson told the story again, noting that the incident damaged Thompson’s campaign.

Thompson’s response:

“On top of the other embellishments already piled on what we now know was a journalistic fabrication, yet another writer is adding another falsehood — that the Iowa fair events which never really happened were responsible for seriously damaging a campaign. And they lazily repeat it over and over and over. Guess it beats working. Besides, there are never any consequences.”

Thompson predicts where the story will go:

“Four years from now, I fully expect to read about a 2007 trip to the Iowa State Fair where I was driven around in the back of a stretch Hummer with tinted windows while sporting mirrored sunglasses and a Moammar Qaddafi cape, and being fed grapes by a nubile campaign volunteer.”

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Steve Myers was the managing editor of Poynter.org until August 2012, when he became the deputy managing editor and senior staff writer for The Lens,…
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