Right (Wing), Said Fred

With a big Generik hat tip to my good friend nashtbrutusandshort (who ran a long excerpt from this yesterday), I'd like to point you all to a Matt Taibbi article outlining why K-Street Fred Thompson might just be our worst national nightmare next White House resident, and why that would be such a Bad Thing. This guy is scary in a sneaky way. I've already heard one of my conservative friends voice approval for his candidacy, when he knows next to nothing about the man. But maybe that's the point...

(Fred) Thompson may act like a blank slate -- a homespun version of Being There hero Chauncey Gardiner running on a platform of "Whatever you say" and "I'll get back to you on that" -- but he represents something else that no one, after seven years of George W. Bush, could possibly have expected: a new low. It was bad enough when the GOP field was led by a grinning Mormon corporatist and a fascist ex-mayor itching to take his prostate pain out on the world, but Thompson is the worst yet -- a human snooze button, campaigning baldly for the head-in-the-sand vote by asking Americans not to think but to change the channel. And that, after all, is what the campaign trail is all about. Give voters a chance to go lower than they've ever gone before, and you'll get numbers in a heartbeat. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the next Republican front-runner.

Think about the millions of Americans out there who spend their lives in a daze, whose idea of news runs the gamut from Britney to Paris to O.J., and it makes perfect sense: Thompson is the ideal candidate for the somnambulent voter.

When asked about Iraq, Thompson goes into a scene straight out of Hollywood, talking about visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed hospital who just couldn't wait for their leg stumps to grow back so they could give Jerry some more hell at the front. "It's the ones who are most wounded who most want to rejoin their comrades," he says.

Two minutes after that last bit, I am outside talking to an older woman named Rita Fairfield, who pronounces herself completely convinced. She likes Thompson's take on national security, among other things, especially the part about staying the course. I ask her why she thinks the surge is working. "From what I heard from the soldiers who are coming back, they're willing to give up life and limb," she says. "The ones that are coming back maimed seem to be the ones most ready to go back to battle."

Huh, I think. Where did I just hear that?

Just what we need as Commander-in-Chief: another goddamned liar calling the shots and sending our children off to die and get hurt, all the while reassuring us that the ones who are hurt the worst are the ones who want to go the most. Who wouldn't want to vote for a stand-up guy, a true patriot like that? I'm ready to send my marked ballot in today, so that I can get back to watching the game before the Seinfeld reruns come on.