Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked.
And on Sunday at 4 PM ET, tune in to Air America [1] Radio's "Seder on Sundays" [2] program, where I'll offer the Weekend Watchdog Wrap-Up.
For former Sen. Fred Thompson (ABC's This Week [3]): Your "Border Security and Immigration Reform" plan [4] says: "Do not provide legal status to illegal aliens. Amnesty undermines U.S. law and policy..."
But on the 4/3/06 edition of "Hannity and Colmes," [5] you said:
...because we allowed ourselves to wait until we woke up one day and found 12 million illegals here, there's no easy solution. And I think that you have to realize that you're either going to drive 12 million people underground permanently, which is not a good solution.
You're going to get them all together and get them out of the country, which is not going to happen. Or you're going to have to, in some way, work out a deal where they can have some aspirations of citizenship...
How can you give "some aspirations of citizenship" to 12 million illegal immigrants, without providing them "legal status?"
For former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Fox News Sunday [6]): Arkansas Times Executive Editor Max Brantley wrote in Salon [7] this week that:
After he became governor in 1996, he raked in tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, including gifts from people he later appointed to prestigious state commissions ... Furniture he'd received to doll up his office was carted out with him when he left, after he'd crushed computer hard drives so nobody could ever get a peek behind the curtain...
...he converted a governor's mansion operating account into a personal expense account, claiming public money for a doghouse, dry-cleaning bills, panty hose and meals at Taco Bell. He tried to claim $70,000 in furnishings provided by a wealthy cotton grower for the private part of the residence as his own, until he learned ethics rules prevented it. When a disgruntled former employee disclosed memos revealing all this, the Huckabee camp shut her up by repeatedly suggesting she might be vulnerable to prosecution for theft because she'd shared documents generated by the state's highest official.
...Inauguration funds were used to buy clothing for his wife. He once took control of the state Republican Party's campaign account -- then swore the account had been somebody else's responsibility when it ran afoul of federal election laws. He repeated the pattern when he claimed in a newspaper story that his staff controlled the account to stage his second inauguration. When I filed a formal ethics complaint over what appeared to be an improper appropriation of donated money, he told a different story, disavowing responsibility for the money. He thus avoided another punishment from an Ethics Commission, which had sanctioned him on five other occasions.
Why would Americans choose someone with such a horrible ethical record to be their next president?
For former Sen. John Edwards (CBS' Face The Nation [8]): In August, you said [9], "Musharraf is not a wonderful leader, but he provides some stability in Pakistan. And there is a great risk, if he's overthrown, about a radical government taking over."
But the dissident leaders calling for Musharraf's ouster, and being arrested for doing so, are not radical terrorists, but lawyers, judges and human rights activists.
Hasn't our support for an unpopular dictator fostered instability in Pakistan?
***
Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here [10]
Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com [11]
Email Fox News Sunday at FNS@foxnews.com [12]
Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.
Links:
[1] http://airamerica.com/
[2] http://www.samsedershow.com/
[3] http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3870839&page=1
[4] http://www.fred08.com/virtual/Immigration.aspx
[5] http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=199205#C2
[6] http://www.foxnews.com/fns/
[7] http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/13/huckabee/print.html
[8] http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/ftn/main3460.shtml
[9] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/story?id=3498294
[10] http://abcnews.go.com/thisweek/story?id=64596
[11] mailto:ftn@cbsnews.com
[12] mailto:FNS@foxnews.com