Foxie Fred Thompson

by Laura Snedeker

Law & Order actor and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson didn’t get to take part in Tuesday’s Republican debate at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, but his appearance on Hannity and Colmes that night helped right-wing news outlet FOX News promote its favorite almost-candidate.

Thompson, who originally replaced Al Gore when the former Vice President gave up his Senate seat, left Congress in 2002 and didn’t expect to return to Washington. Ever since he announced that he might consider a run for president, FOX News has been all over him like Dick Morris on a cheap hooker.

His appeal to conservatives stems mostly from his status as an alternative to the top three Republican contenders, whom many see as too liberal to lead the country. Although Rudolph Giuliani can tout his “tough on crime” credentials and his strong stance on national security issues, “America’s Mayor” faces criticism over his abortion politics. Although he personally opposes abortion, he says he respects “a woman’s right to make a different choice.”

Mitt Romney has similar problems, as he only came out against abortion after realizing he would rather be the Republican nominee for president than the governor of Massachusetts. There’s also the so-called Mormon Problem. Although the Church of Latter-Day Saints abandoned the practice of polygamy several decades ago, Mormonism is seen by some as being a peculiar out-of-the-mainstream variant of conservative Christianity.

And Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) just isn’t the man he used to be, due in large part to his age – he will be 72 in 2008 – and his anti-torture position. I wonder if his stay at the Hanoi Hilton might have something to do with that.

Enter Fred Thompson. Anti-abortion. Pro-Iraq War. Pro-tax cuts for the wealthy. He’s shaping up to be the Republican’s dream candidate, and like Al Gore, he’s probably received more media attention because of the will-he-or-won’t-he element (and his high-profile status as both a politician and an employee entertainer). And if Al Gore can tease viewers with a possible run for the White House, then so can Fred Thompson.

His actor-politician role naturally invites comparisons to Ronald Reagan, who was a film actor and governor of California before he became president. Republicans make a habit of invoking Reagan’s spirit, and at the debate Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee made sure he was the first to call upon the power of the Great Communicator (who perhaps could have helped Giuliani with his spazzy microphone), even if he did mix up the dates of his birth and death, as FOX News noted.

Actors can manipulate and be manipulated, and part of Fred Thompson’s appeal is that he can play the role of a strong conservative president and appear completely in control of the situation. At the same time, because he has trained himself to be convincing, he can act as the front for political operators who prefer to wield power quietly. I wager that in private, many conservatives, even while they support President George W. Bush, would admit that the brains behind the operation belong to Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney (two of the only people who have stuck with the embattled president through Iraq and the Scooter Libby trial).

Maybe that isn’t entirely fair to Fred Thompson, who may very well be a sincere and intelligent candidate fully capable of running the office, but his sudden emergence as a serious candidate is due less to his own efforts than to the efforts of FOX News. FOX’ one goal is to be kingmaker for a second time in a row, and its obsession with fielding a suitably conservative Republican candidate was seen in Sean Hannity’s interrogation of Thompson about the war in Iraq, the supposed threat from Iran, abortion politics, and in his push to get Thompson to say whether or not he will formally announce on July 4.

Thompson may be able to act more presidential than Bush, but if his pre-election performance is any clue, we’ll get four more years of the same, albeit a bit more eloquently.

(The photo is the official Senate photo of Fred D. Thompson, and is in the public domain. To see a clip from FOX News with Thompson's reaction to the most recent Republican debate, please check below.)




Fred Thompson
politics
television
FOX
FOX News
conservatives
Republicans
2008 campaign
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