Fred Thompson Voices Familiar Theme: Try the National Interest for a Change!

David Broder interviewed Fred Thompson. Here's an interesting portion, referring to "the fiscal crisis of an aging society with runaway heath care."

"Nobody in Congress or on either side in the presidential race wants to deal with it," Thompson said. "So we just rock along and try to maintain the status quo. Republicans say keep the tax cuts; Democrats say keep the entitlements. And we become a less unified country in the process, with a tax code that has become an unholy mess, and all we do is tinker around the edges." Thompson readily concedes that he does not know "where all those chips are going to fall" when he starts challenging members of various interest groups to look beyond their individual agendas and weigh the sacrifices that could assure a better future for their children.

As you may have already inferred, Thompson has a different take on 'what a President should do:'

...he thinks that the public is looking for a different kind of leadership. "I think a president could go to the American people and say, 'Here's what we need to be doing. and I'm willing to go half-way.' Now you have to make them (the opposition) go half-way." The approach Thompson says he's contemplating is one that will step on many sensitive political toes.

A Presidency with the National Interest in mind? Heaven forfend!!

At any rate, P-Mac seems to have read the same material as did Fred.

So did we.