Fred Thompson: Abortion rights advocate

Freddie K-Street might not remember doing any lobbying work on behalf of an abortion-rights group, but he didn't forget to cash their checks.

Billing records show that former Senator Fred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization.

According to records from Arent Fox, the law firm based in Washington where Mr. Thompson worked part-time from 1991 to 1994, he charged the organization, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, about $5,000 for work he did in 1991 and 1992. The records show that Mr. Thompson, a probable Republican candidate for president in 2008, spent much of that time in telephone conferences with the president of the group, and on three occasions he reported lobbying administration officials on its behalf.

Mr. Thompson’s work for the family planning agency has become an issue because he is positioning himself as a faithful conservative who is opposed to abortion.

So now, Thompson has a choice to make: he can admit that, yes, he remembers doing the work and he's sorry for lying and he won't ever do it again; or he can continue to insist that he doesn't remember doing the work, suggesting that he is too feeble-minded to be trusted with the presidency.