Lawn Order Presidency?

It's so goddam typical of these coy politicians: "I might run for president, I might not, first show me how much you love me".

So how is it that Fred I'm-not-really-an-avuncular-wise- man-I-just-play-one-on-television Thompson can be a Rethug frontrunner when he hasn't even announced that he is running?

How is it that the Moron-American voting bloc can think that the wise men that Thompson plays on TV and in the movies are somehow actually what we'll get if we elect him president?

Jesus, the guy was a high-powered lobbyist from K Street for most of his career. How that translates into presidential material is beyond me. You might as well have a completely incompetent moron sweeping into office on his daddy's coattails ...

What?

Uh... never mind.

But ... while we're on the subject, just who IS Fred Thompson and why is he suddenly the darling of the Rethug party? My guess is that he's the anti-Giuliani candidate, the any-body-but-Giuliani candidate. The "mainstream" right wing thinks Mr. No-Lip doesn't have what it really takes to be prezdint. Too much of a political hack, too much of an insider.

So it's not surprising that Good Ole Boy Freddy is hard at work, spinning himself as a Washington outsider, but how much of it is true?

Answer: None of of.

Freddy first came to Washington as a Minority Counsel (i.e., Rethug) for the Watergate Hearings, and he's the one who springboarded to fame for his televised grilling of Alexander Butterworth in which Butterworth first revealed that Nixon had secretively taped all Offal Office conversations. (And rumors abound that Freddy already knew about the tapes, and, in fact, had leaked that knowledge to the White House before Butterworth was called to testify -- in other words, Freddy was grandstanding.)

He then spent some 20 years as a high-octane lobbyist, spurring on such vital public policy issues as deregulation of the Savings and Loan Industry, the direct result of which cost American taxpayers 150 billion dollars when the industry collapsed and we had to bail it out. And don't forget the "forgotten" Bush brother, Neil, who ran his own S&L into the ground while he was screwing hookers in Bangkok.

Freddy was also tight with fellow Tennesseans Howard Baker and William Frist when they were leaders in the senate, and he helped establish the Clinch River nuclear project, which, by the time it was shut down before ever going on line had cost taxpayers another $1.7 billion.

And even after he became the face of law and order on television, he successfully lobbied for a British company who wanted to weasel out of its asbestos lawsuits accountability.

He was Baby Doc's point man on the nomination and eventual approval of Chief Justice John I-was-a-liar-when-I-testified-about-my-judicial-philosophy Roberts. Plus he was instrumental in the formation and operation of the Scooter Libby Defense Fund, which ultimately raised more than $5 million, and he was quick to state that he would pardon Libby if he were president.

And this is the "outsider" who now wants to be president? Hardly. And people need to wake up and take a cold hard look at the facts before blindly supporting him for president.

But chances are they won't. Once again emotion will triumph over reason, and fantasy will trump reality.