Via PowerLine and Real Clear Politics, here is a YouTube video of Fred Thompson speaking to the Lincoln Club of Orange County. (Text here)
On immigration:
A sovereign nation that can’t do that is not a sovereign nation. This is secondarily an immigration issue. It’s primarily a national security issue. We were told twenty years ago if we produced a comprehensive solution, we’d solve the illegal immigration problem. Twelve million illegals later, we’re being told that same thing again. I don’t believe most Americans are as concerned about the 12 million that are here as they are about the next 12 million and the next 12 million after that. I think they’re thinking: “Prove you can secure the border and then people of good will can sit down and work out the rest of it, while protecting those folks who play by the rules.”
The Weekly Standard has the second writeup of an interview with him (first here).
“The greatest source of my frustration,” he says, “is that in any situation involving military conflict in a democracy, the president has a limited window of opportunity to get the job done, or more precisely, to make progress. That window can be pretty wide if progress is being made. My concern is that we have waited so long that that window is almost closed. And you cannot carry on a war for any length of time at all without the support of the American people.” He adds: “If we had done this three years ago, I just think we would have been in much better shape.”
What I like about him is not just that he is on the right side of the issues, he knows and can communicate why they are the right side of the issue.
Update: See this interview at Breitbart.tv (Drudges guy).
“That has to do with, in my case, with the man fitting the times. The man has got to fit the times. The part of what I’m doing right now is deciding whether or not that’s the case. If it is, some remarkable things can be done. And all this stuff about the polls, and the money, and the timing, and the details, and the dirty tricks, and things like that, you know, will pale in comparison. If the man does not fit the times, it doesn’t matter either, all those other things. So we’ll see if that’s the case.”
The Fred Thompson I saw on FOXNews was calling for the legalization of illegals already here. This would reward a criminal class that is breaking a whole series of US laws , including the wage and hours laws and the social security laws. This is not conservativism!