Fred garners praise for his direct response to National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru - check out what Maggie Gallagher says about it on Yahoo News:

I imagine most politicians have to put some sort of psychic barrier between themselves and the relentlessly dart-throwing media, if only to stay sane during the grueling weird endurance marathon we call “running for president.” But this week, in an exchange with National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, Fred Thompson tore down that fourth wall, separating him — a potential leader of the Free World — and us, folks who chat for a living.

Few probably would have paid much attention to a mild little essay by Ponnuru taking Fred Thompson to task for votes on a couple of issues that, as even Ponnuru noted, few if any actual voters care passionately about, such as federal pre-emption of state laws and a federal cap on attorney’s fees in state tobacco cases. “But if conservatives mean what they say when they complain about the dangerous rapacity of the trial bar,” Ponnuru challenged, “they ought to ask Senator Thompson a few hard questions.”

Ask and ye shall receive. Much to everyone’s surprise, Fred Thompson quickly dashed off a response, posted on www.nationalreview.com — a devastating, substantive, smart, wry and above all personal response. For example, on his opposition to a bill that would federally regulate lawyer’s fees in tobacco cases: “Get this: Under the amendment the states would have been required to send the attorneys’ bills to the House and Senate Judiciary for approval,” riffs Thompson. “As I said on the floor on May 19, 1998, ‘I did not come to the Senate to review billing records from lawyers in private lawsuits.’

Read the full article here.

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