Ignorance is no excuse

These Republicans sure do surround themselves with sleazebags, don't they? Rudy Giuliani's South Carolina campaign chairman is a cocaine trafficker; his affiliation with Bernie Kerik is (or ought to be) an embarrassment to his quest to be the Rule of Law candidate, and hired a pedophile priest to work in his consulting firm months AFTER Msgr. Alan Placa was accused of molesting three underage boys.

Not to be left out, Grandpa Fred seems to want a piece of the crook action too. Turns out the private plane on which he's been flying is owned by a friend with a history of drug trafficking:

Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.

Thompson selected the businessman, Philip Martin, to raise seed money for his White House bid. Martin is one of four campaign co-chairmen and the head of a group called the "first day founders." Campaign aides jokingly began to refer to Martin, who has been friends with Thompson since the early 1990s, as the head of "Thompson's Airforce."

Thompson's frequent flights aboard Martin's twin-engine Cessna 560 Citation have saved him more than $100,000, because until the law changed in September, campaign-finance rules allowed presidential candidates to reimburse private jet owners for just a fraction of the true cost of flights.

Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation.

Thompson's campaign said the candidate was not aware of the multiple criminal cases, for which Martin served no jail time. All are described in public court records.

Karen Hanretty, Thompson's deputy communications director, said yesterday that "Senator Thompson was unaware of the information until this afternoon. Phil Martin has been a friend of the senator since the mid-1990s and remains so today." Thompson communications director Todd Harris added that Martin was not subjected to the campaign's standard vetting process because "he's a longtime friend."

You have to ask yourself how these high-profile men who have long had higher political ambitions, pick their "friends." Last week Paul Krugman opined that Giuliani's tendency to spout utter horseshit ought to be judged not as a "mistake", but as a larger question of "character." I don't expect candidates to vet every contribution that comes across the transom; after all, politics is a dirty business. But when there is a pattern of candidates having criminals as "friends", particularly when said Candidates are Republicans with a history of giving lip service to law and morality, their judgment, if not their integrity, warrants increased scrutiny.

The imbecile's candidate

So does Grandpa Fred have Ronald Reagan beat by having Alzheimer's before even winning the election, or is he just this mind-bogglingly dumb?

Massachusetts' highest court ruled in 2003 that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. But high courts in several other states have refused to follow suit, including Maryland last month. Cases are pending in Connecticut and California.

Edward Paul, an employee of the Delta Dental Plans Association, asked the question Monday, but had trouble being understood.

"I'm proud to say that in January 2008 New Hampshire has passed a law facilitating civil unions here. ... What is your belief for federal civil unions to be passed?" Paul asked.

"Soviet Union?" Thompson responded.

"No, civil unions," Paul said.

"Oh. No, I would not be in support of that," Thompson said.

What's with Thompson's obsession with the Soviet Union, anyway?

The new qualifications for the Republican nominee

...from Roger Simon at Politico:

All he has to do is not fall asleep.

All he has to do is not throw up.

All he has to do is not drool.

If Fred Thompson does none of these, the pundits say he wins the debate tonight. Even though he knows nothing about the Terri Schaivo case, thinks the Soviet Union still exists, and insists that Saddam Hussein "clearly had weapons of mass destruction".

Republicans sure do like their tough-talking Big Manly Idiots, don't they?

What to do with your old diaphragm

Most women don't use a diaphragm anymore. Last time I checked the statistics, only 3% of women use one. It's really a shame, though, because if you don't want to pump hormones into your body, the diaphragm, used correctly, is an inexpensive, non-interruptive, highly effective method of contraception.

But what do you do with the old ones when it's time to replace them? It seems a shame -- and certainly not "green" -- to just toss it. If you look at it, there ought to be SOMETHING that Heloise could come up with for it -- temporary drain stopper, gravy strainer...something...

The Thompson family of Tennessee thinks they've found a good use for it: teething ring!

Here's the full video:

As someone who used to use one, I can tell you that you're right. That is one mighty HUGE diaphragm.

(via BradBlog)

Meet your exciting new Republican candidate for the presidency

At least it was well into Reagan's second term when the Alzheimer's took hold:

Freshly minted GOP White House hopeful Fred Thompson puzzled Iowans yesterday by insisting an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side.

"They said, 'You gotta quit smoking,'" Thompson explained to a questioner asking about progress in Iraq during a town hall-style meeting.

Thompson said the smoking ban and terror tactics Al Qaeda used to oppress women and intimidate local leaders pushed tribes in western Anbar Province to support U.S. troops.

But Thompson's tale of a smokers' revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.

"I don't know what that was about," said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.

Iowans, several of whom told the Daily News they were intrigued by Thompson's down-home charm, got their first extended chance to press for details of his broad theme of "common-sense conservatism."

On abortion, Thompson said he would appoint judges in favor of overturning Roe vs. Wade but had reservations about a constitutional amendment banning it.

He also said he'd finish a wall along the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration: "We get to decide who comes into our home."

Thompson said "things are turning around" in Iraq and that troop reductions should not be linked to some "arbitrary time line."

His cue to stop talking came from 4-year-old daughter Hayden, who came on stage with a bow in her hair to tug on Thompson's pants leg - drawing "oohs" from the audience.

The man is quite clearly an idiot. But look at how easily his audience is diverted by bright shiny objects. Must be that much-lauded Fred Thompson "sex appeal" (speaking of "shiny objects"):

Honk if you've had Fred Thompson's baby.

(link via Skippy)

But in a year which already has a ton of Scary Republican Candidates, from the dictatorial and unhinged Rudy Giuliani to the Stepford candidate Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson is perhaps the stealth weapon that once and for all will put to rest one way or the other whether Americans have really become completely stupid.

Michael Scheuer:

The ol' Southern lawyer Freddie Dalton Thompson stands before two stuffed chickens and a fake white picket fence, where a plastic grapevine pretends to grow at the end of a phony Main Street. He's here to tell a crowd of a couple hundred that he is the real thing, a small-town boy who never had much ambition, who never grew up wanting to be president, who still doesn't know where he stands on many issues -- but ain't America a wonderful country.

"My story is just another American story," says the former senator, his baritone Tennessee drawl rounding the edges of his words. "Growing up in a town that wasn't quite this big. My folks came in off the farm. Didn't get a chance to go to high school or any further education. Had to go to work. Became the most wonderful parents anybody could have. Because they really saw in me a little more than I saw in myself sometimes."

Thompson goes on like this for about 20 minutes, keeping the crowd's interest, even though they are squeezed in like matchsticks at one end of Music Man Square, an indoor museum built to celebrate the musical of the same name. "I've seen America from every vantage point. I've seen it from the factory floor on the graveyard shift," he says. "I've been able to dine in foreign capitals with foreign leaders all over the world."

His speech patterns are hypnotic and calming. He paces back and forth, looking at shoes as often as faces. Nothing is forced, emotional or too complex. He explains his decision to abandon a lucrative acting career for the world's most difficult job, presidential candidate, as if he woke up one morning and decided to put down the whiskey bottle for his family. "I could sit back and read somebody else's script and maybe clip coupons once in a while," he says. "Or I could step up."

He chose the latter, however hesitantly, leading to his Republican campaign announcement on "The Tonight Show" last Wednesday, followed by a chartered bus tour of Iowa's browning cornfields -- three days, six events, about as many folksy aphorisms as there are catfish in a Mississippi mud pond.

[snip]

Add Thompson's 6-foot, 5-inch frame to the mix, and his advantage is clear. He is new to the game, and unlike all these politicians who try so hard, he is just like you. He even says so on the stump. "Let's get right to the chase," he told a crowd in Sioux City on Friday. "The main question that you have a right to know from me is why I'm running for president. And the answer is pretty simple. I'm just like you are."

Yes, Fred Thompson is just like you -- if you've spent most of your adult life as a Washington lobbyist.

But having grown up with having reality never seeming more real as when viddied on a screen, you don't have to actually BE presidential, you just have to look it on TV.

Here, my friends, is your typical Republican voter:

"It really doesn't matter what issue is at hand as long as he has the fundamentals and the principles to make the right decision," one Republican voter, a maintenance man named Chris Enos, told me after Thompson spoke in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. "He's everybody's dad. He's everybody's grandpa. He just is a likable person."

After Thompson finished up in Mason City, I fell into conversation with Dean Davidson, a Republican business consultant from Minneapolis, who had stopped by during a visit to Iowa to see some family. "I get so tired of the people who say they know the answers to everything," he told me, explaining the Thompson appeal. "When he talks about working on the factory floor, dirt under your fingernails, and how his parents taught him to achieve something, that's me." After an event in Des Moines, a third voter, Jim Deeds, explained the magic this way. "He's the real deal," he said. "He's not Ronald Reagan, but he's a close second."

Note to America: Public figures are not people you know. I don't care how many times you've seen them on TV, I don't care how likeable they seem on the stump, or at the book signing, or sitting in the audience in Conan O'Brien's studio: YOU DO NOT KNOW THESE PEOPLE.

A few years ago I was enlisted by ModFab into being part of the "meet and greet" staff at the Drama League awards. And what struck me most as I pointed hot and cold running celebrities to the appropriate seating area was just how much SMALLER most of them seemed from what I expected. The most striking example I saw that day was Frances Sternhagen. You know her as Charlotte's first husband's mother. She always plays these stern WASP matriarchs. You'd think she was about 5'10" tall, wouldn't you? Nope. She's about five feet tall at most, and if I recall correctly was carrying a backpack. Can you imagine Trey's mother carrying a backpack? Of course not. But Frances Sternhagen is not Trey's mother, because there is no Trey. And he has no mother.

Now it may very well be that Thompson, like John Edwards, has not forgotten his upbringing, for all that he's been successful. But unlike John Edwards, that remembrance is for political effect only, for his voting record demonstrates his "pull up the ladder behind me" elitism:

• Voted NO on allowing reimportation of Rx drugs from Canada. (Jul 2002)


• Voted NO on allowing patients to sue HMOs & collect punitive damages. (Jun 2001)


• Voted NO on including prescription drugs under Medicare. (Jun 2000)
  


• Voted YES on limiting self-employment health deduction. (Jul 1999)
  


• Voted YES on repealing Clinton's ergonomic rules on repetitive stress. (Mar 2001)


• Voted YES on killing an increase in the minimum wage. (Nov 1999)


• Voted NO on reducing marriage penalty instead of cutting top tax rates. (May 2001)


• Voted NO on increasing tax deductions for college tuition. (May 2001)

No, Fred Thompson is not "just like you." But you Republicans in the flyover states keep believing it. Just don't come crying to me that you have no jobs, you can't afford college for your kids, and the road you drive on every day in your job hunt is full of potholes.

Why is anyone taking this man seriously?

Fred Thompson, helping George Bush move the goalposts of apprehending Osama Bin Laden:

"Bin Laden being in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan is not as important as there are probably al-Qaida operatives inside the United States of America," Thompson said.

Bin Laden is considered the man behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The former Tennessee senator and actor argued that "bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else. I think it demonstrates to people once again that we're in a global war."

Thompson said the al-Qaida leader and the Iraq war must be seen as part of the larger war on terrorism.

"It's one that bin Laden and people like him are heading up and we need to catch him and we surely need to deal with him, but if he disappeared tomorrow we still have this problem. If Iraq disappeared tomorrow, we'd still have this problem," Thompson said.

Later in the day, and after Democrats had been critical of his earlier remarks, Thompson took a much tougher stance. "Apparently Osama bin Laden has crawled out of his cave long enough to send another video and he is getting a lot of attention," he said at a rally in Mason City. "He ought to be caught and killed."

Thompson maintained, however, that killing bin Laden would not end the terrorist threat.

[snip]

On Iraq, Thompson defended his support for the war and contended that progress has been made months after President Bush sent in 30,000 more combat troops. The American people, he said, recognize that the situation has improved.

"I think you're already seeing a change in perception as better news comes out of Iraq," Thompson said. "I think the American people will come to that view as they see things develop. We are finally on the right track in Iraq and we're making progress."

Asked whether the U.S. should have focused on getting bin Laden instead of going to war in Iraq, Thompson said: "It's not an either or situation. Saddam Hussein was on the cusp of having defeated the United Nations and the free world and the United States. He had certainly had weapons of mass destruction and the capability of reviving his nuclear program."

Uh, Fred? No, he didn't. And if you hadn't spent the last six years pretending to be a tough guy on TV, you might know that.

What an idiot.

If it weren't possible that one of these men would be the next president, it would be fun watching Frederick of Hollywood and Flip Flop Mitt falling all over themselves trying to find the right way to both put lipstick on the so-called Global War on Terror pig and keep the population nice and frightened at the same time.

One has to wonder how they think it's going to be possible to spin the fact that Bin Laden is looking healthier than ever six years after bringing the United States Constitution to its knees simply by arming nineteen guys with boxcutters as some kind of proof that the Bush Doctrine is working.

Craig and Thompson and The Creature Rear Their Ugly Heads...YKT!!

Well there you go again...

Fred Thompson has finally announced that he is gonna announce....oh joy! All this planning and testing the waters and pre-announcements before the pre-announcement of the announcement...and now the leak of the announcement...man! This has me interested in his candidacy...Not! But Come on in, Fred, the waters fine and the pool is full of all sorts of interesting fish. Just keep your stance narrow and your hookers happy, and everything should be just dandy.

Thanks to Vern McN, I have finally solved that nagging feeling I had about old Fred reminding me of someone...No, not the guy you saw every week on Law and Order...but this guy:




Separated at birth? I dunno...you tell me....They even have the same taste in wimmin'




***********

With that out of the way, I have a couple of little tidbits that Ive been able to pick up in my mad dash from school to school, in a frustrating realization that my two are at opposite ends of out little southern CT world here...damn!

The increase in driving has led me back to the sad realization that 3 hours of Sammy Seder goes fast and...then what? Leo LaPorte has enough content to last for days, but a girl can't live on tech-casts alone...so luckily I picked up a podcast radio show called This is Hell, which is broadcast out of Chicago, but offers a lovely archive with 2007 here.
I highly recommend the July 28th show which featured Noam Chomsky in a long format interview that was fantastic, along with many other interesting guests...take my word for it; the hosts are clever and funny, (not Marc Maron or even Sam Seder, but pretty damned good,)and the show is actually...dare I say to or it might get canceled?...good. Still, I take nothing for granted after the loss of the early Air America line up, so appreciate whatever of it is OK, and trash the rest.

This past week, I was fascinated by this piece in the NY Times technology section by David Pogue, which lists many of the new and newer online abbreviations, and the ones that he made up along with his summer interns....and of course, in the course of joking around on instant messenger with a friend, we managed to make up quite a few of our own; the possibilities are endless...

I know I'm a tech geek girl, and this sort of stuff isnt of interest to y'all out there in politics-land, but this is pretty interesting stuff, even if you...er...don't text...eeekkkk!

* GI -- Google it

* MOP -- Mac or PC?

* FCAO -- five conversations at once

* IIOYT -- is it on YouTube?

* DYFH -- did you Facebook him/her?

* BIOI -- buy it on iTunes

* CMOS -- call me on Skype

* GGNUDP -- gotta go, no unlimited data plan

* WLF -- with the lady friend

* JUOC -- jacked up on caffeine

* 12OF -- twelve-o'clock flasher (refers to someone less than competent with technology, to the extent that every appliance in the house flashes "12:00")

* SML -- send me the link

* RHB -- read his/her blog

* MBLO -- much better-looking online

* KYST -- knew you'd say that

* NBL -- no battery left

* CTTC -- can't talk, teacher's coming

* TWD -- typing while driving

* CMT (CMF, CMM, CMB) -- check my Twitter (Facebook, Myspace, blog)

* CYE (CYF, CYM, CYB)--check your email (Facebook, Myspace, blog)

And a few just for iPhone owners:

* SPLETS -- send pics later; Edge too slow

* CSVUI -- can't send video, using iPhone

* BPWMI -- boss playing with my iPhone

* SIK -- sorry, iPhone keyboard

* OOM -- out of messages (for iPhone users who haven't upgraded their AT&T "200 messages a month" plan)

And then for us oldsters:

* WIWYA -- when I was your age

* YKT – you kids today

* CRRE -- conversation required; remove earbuds

* WDO? -- what are you doing online?

* NIWYM -- no idea what you mean

* NCK -- not a chance, kid

* B2W -- back to work

* AYD? -- are you drunk?

* LODH -- log off, do homework

* DYMK? -- does your mother know?

* IGAT -- I've got abbreviations, too

Finally, I wanted to say something about wide-stance Craig and his traveling circus, but I was feeling like he had already had more attention than was due him. Hell, he already has probably gotten a book out of this...speaking engagements are sure to follow...treatment, redemption...not necessarily in that order.

Now , after his kids appeared on GMA this morning to continue their apparent family-wide denial, the word is that the oddball is going to try to fight his guilty plea and take back his resignation plans ...and you know what? Godspeed Larry! I think that this fine example of the best that the republican party has to offer, should stand up and explain, and explain, and explain...and argue this thing right up to the supreme court! After all, what is more important than a man's reputation?...Ha! Go for it baby!!

(cross posted at RIPCoco)

Now if Chris Matthews wants to sniff around presidential candidates' underwear drawers, he might want to check out this guy

We already know that the mainstream media has nothing better to do than to sniff around the corners of the Clintons' marriage, pick up Ann Coulter's meme about John Edwards being somehow less of a man because of his haircuts, and speculate on the impact of Michelle Obama's professional life on the campaign. After all, these are more important issues in a society in which Paris Hilton's jail time warranted more coverage than Scooter Libby's -- non-jail time.

But I wonder if the mainstream media, particularly the head underwear drawer-sniffers at the New York Times (*cough* Maureen Dowd *cough*), the folks who ran this puff piece about Jeri Thompson and her two close friends today as part of the Serious Journalists' continuing effort to portray the aging, hangdog Fred Thompson as a Real Macho Potent Man, are going to have anything to say about this oblique tidbit tossed out there a week ago by Andrew Sullivan while I was in Bethesda learning about Cold Fusion 8 and trying to recover my emotional equilibrium:

Outside the extremist, activist base, regular GOP voters turn out to be relatively tolerant when it comes to sexual minorities and private sex lives. They're not well represented by their party leaders, as far as policy is concerned. This is good news for Fred Thompson. The man has had a colorful and wide-ranging sex life, as I'm sure we will soon find out.

Rick Santorum, call your office.

Little Piggies

Exhibit A: the Thompson family. I guess Fred Thompson's kids aren't making enough money as lobbyists at the moment, so they need Dad to run for president to ensure their access:

On Christmas Eve 1994, Fred D. Thompson Jr. was out of a job. A 34-year-old self-described late bloomer, Mr. Thompson had graduated from law school just two years before and practiced law only for his father, Fred D. Thompson Sr., who was about to be sworn in as a senator from Tennessee.

“I was out on the street, knocking on doors,” recalled the younger Mr. Thompson, who is known as Tony.

But attending Brentwood Methodist Church in Nashville that night, Tony Thompson ran into the departing incumbent senator, Harlan Mathews, a Democrat. Mr. Mathews invited Tony to join him in a Nashville lobbying business, a job that would let him capitalize on his father’s new position.

“I don’t just believe in the tooth fairy,” Mr. Mathews said. “A lot of people were seeking access — not necessarily unfair access, but seeking access — so Tony was employed in a number of areas where his father had made a reputation or his father’s advice or whatever was going to be valuable one of these days.”

Now the elder Mr. Thompson, who also worked as a lobbyist before and after his eight years in the Senate, is aiming for an even higher post, preparing a run for the Republican presidential nomination. In the folksy drawl that built him a lucrative sideline as a screen actor, Mr. Thompson is presenting himself as a reform-minded outsider taking on Washington, just as he did when he campaigned for the Senate as “Ol’ Fred” the “real live country lawyer,” and cruised Tennessee in a rented red pickup truck.

But the lobbying work that Tony Thompson and another son, Daniel, did after their father won his Senate seat suggests how far the family has traveled from Fred Thompson’s early career. Not only has he parlayed his own political background into a lobbying business — a fact his opponents have seized on to challenge his outsider image — but his sons have also made lobbying a family affair.

The more we hear about Fred Thompson, the less like the Second Coming of Reagan he seems, and the more like the Second Coming of George Herbert Walker Bush -- only with the intellect of the latter's son.

Meet the Republican Savior

Here's the guy the Republicans want to replace George W. Bush:

MR. RUSSERT: He was asked last night what would he do as president. He said, “Well, I’d do lots of things.” And asked, what if—“Are you prepared to talk about those?” He said, “No.” Obviously wanting to give time to frame his issues. You remember the 1994 Senate campaign when he ran for the Senate in Tennessee. Here he is with the famous red pickup truck. Is this going to be a, a campaign of a lot of style, a Hollywood actor saying, “I’m a good ol’ boy”?

Memo to Timmeh: Yes, that's exactly what this is going to be. Hey, Thompson says he's going to do "lots of things." Isn't that enough? I mean, whaddya want, anyway -- someone who actually KNOWS what's goin on in the world and has a PLAN to address the challenges this country faces? Why do that when he can put on a cowboy hat, or eat some ribs to show he's not some latte-drinking, Volvo-driving tree hugger from the Godless heathen Northeast? After all, real leadership, hard work, knowledge, and planning are SO September 10.

(More at C&L.)

Fred Thompson: The perfect Republican nominee

Another empty suit with the actor-phoniness of Ronald Reagan, and the slacker work ethic of George W. Bush:

Fred Thompson, a Hollywood actor turned White House contender, had a reputation while a U.S. senator of being frustrated with the slow-moving legislative process and preferring dining with friends to late-night congressional sessions.

But the 64-year-old Republican, who retired from the Senate in 2003 after serving eight years, was also seen as a charismatic speaker who exuded confidence, battled government waste and abuse and backed campaign finance reform.

"The consensus seemed to be that he didn't like to work real hard, but was good to have on your team," said a Senate Republican aide. "People said the same thing about (former President) Ronald Reagan," another one-time Hollywood star.

[snip]

A veteran lobbyist said: "He was viewed as a lazy son of gun who would say at two in the afternoon, 'I'm done.' Can you name one major piece of legislation he authored? I can't."

Another lobbyist said: "I like Fred. But I'm not sure he has the energy to wage a long presidential campaign."

Republicans sure do love their dimwitted wastrels who can talk tough and be the Big Strong Daddy figure, don't they?

Heaven forbid

There is no justice in the world when people like Driftglass and Digby and Cernig toil away for free and David Brooks gets paid for writing verbal blowjobs like this:

What Thompson’s campaign represents, then, is a return to basics. It’s not primarily engaged in the issues that have dominated recent G.O.P. politics. Thompson is campaigning to restore America’s constitutional soul. He’s going back to Madison and Jefferson and the decentralized federalism of the founders, at least as channeled through Goldwater. As Thompson himself said while running for Senate, “America’s government is bringing America down, and the only thing that can change that is a return to the basics.”

Thompson thus becomes one pole in the debate now roiling the G.O.P. Nobody is running as the continuation of Bush. The big question now is: should the party go back to the basics or should it jump forward and transform itself into something new? Thompson articulates the back-to-basics view in its purest form. Newt Gingrich articulates the transformational view in its purest form. The other candidates are a mishmash in between.

If I were a political consultant I would tell my candidate to play up Thompson’s back-to-basics theme. This is a traumatized party, not in the mood for anything risky and new. But over the long run, back to basics is no solution because it doesn’t produce a positive agenda for today’s problems.

Fred Thompson’s political skills are as good as anybody now running, but his challenge is going to be building a concrete agenda on his anti-Washington message. It will be translating his Goldwater risorgimento philosophy into policies on energy, health care reform, Islamic extremism and education. For if there is one thing the last 30 years have taught us, it is that campaigns that are strictly anti-Washington do not command 50 percent of the vote because they don’t address the decentralized global challenges that now face us.

Perhaps, as my friend Daniel Casse notes, what the G.O.P. needs is Newt Gingrich’s brain lodged in Fred Thompson’s temperament.

Yeah, right. Just what we need -- a hypocritical wingnut authoritarian lunatic lodged in an actor phony with a deep voice who appeals to American morons who think that his television and movie roles qualify him for the presidency.

And they PAY Brooks to write this stuff?

And by the way, here is the temperament Brooks thinks is so wonderful.

Just wondering, is all

Would one of the wingnuts that visits this site from Memeorandum or Real Clear Politics please explain to me why Fred Thompson is viewed as some kind of Republican Savior?

UPDATE: Ah. Glenn Greenwald explains it all for us. In short: Republicans are so moronic they can't tell the difference between a character a guy plays in movies and on TV and the real thing. But then, they (and their lackeys in the media -- *cough* Chris Matthews *cough*) are the same people who were bamboozled by a Connecticut trust fund boy in a cowboy hat and a flight suit.