Excuse me Fred, about that "true conservative" label

What does it say about the stringent litmus tests of the Republican party that they can't find a single major candidate who hasn't run afoul of them somewhere?

Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as an antiabortion Republican, accepted an assignment from a family-planning group to lobby the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and several people familiar with the matter.

The Thompson campaign denies this in a way that leads one to believe they've been waiting for this,

"Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said in an e-mail.

In a telephone interview, he added: "There's no documents to prove it, there's no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn't happen."

Funny thing is, Fred, there were witnesses,

"I talked to him while he was doing it, and I talked to [DeSarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work that he was doing for her organization," said Barnes. "I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is fact."....

Corallo, the spokesman for Thompson, was asked Friday about the board minutes and the five people who said they recalled Thompson accepting the lobbying assignment. He responded in an e-mail, saying that Thompson "may have been consulted by one of [his] firm's partners who represented this group in 1991."

I guess it's a question of who the religious crazies want to believe, Fred Thompson or five witnesses and minutes from meetings.

Later: The NYTimes echoes, as does the AP.