Monday, August 06, 2007

Fred Thompson: Criticism of My Wife Should Be Directed At Me   [Byron York]

I interviewed former Sen. Fred Thompson today for a profile to be published in the next issue of NR.  We talked about a lot of issues, but one thing he addressed for the first time is the media attention being paid to his wife, Jeri.  (I've just posted a story on Thompson's comments here.)  In the interview, Thompson said criticism of his wife should be directed at him, because she is acting at his behest:

She always looks out for my best interests, and when she sees something that she knows I would not approve of, or is not in my best interest, she voices that concern — in other words, just exactly the way I would want her to. Now, some people don't like that, especially some people who have their own issue with regard to the campaign, shall we say, and they take advantage of putting out anonymous comments and so forth.  

As for a Washington Post report delving into his wife's life before meeting him, Thompson said:

I think the problem is that Jeri refuses to go out in public and behave like a candidate's wife before I'm a candidate.  The fact that she's not out there promoting herself seems to greatly concern some people in the media, so they have gone back to old boyfriends, the families of old boyfriends, high school classmates, basically anything that can be dredged up to fill this void that they perceive has been created…And she's not going to become a public commentator and personality as a candidate's wife until there's a candidate.

Much more in the next NR.

08/06 01:33 PMShare