Right Said Fred

Fred Thompson declared his candidacy for President today, and before you laugh at the idea at another actor in the White House, remember that people laughed at the idea of another Bush in the White House . . . only now the presidency of George Walker Bush, having screwed up more than Archie Andrews in Mr. Lodge's house, is no laughing matter. Unlike Archie Andrews. Or Fred Thompson.

Thompson is a serious man. He is an accomplished lawyer, he served as Republican counsel in the Watergate hearings, and represented Tennessee in the United States Senate for eight years. He doesn't look to be a figurehead like Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, he shares the late President's staunchly conservative politics.

Listening to Thompson just now, expressing concern about the America future generations are going to inherit, nauseated me. Thompson would become the leader of an increasingly multicultural America, and the political agenda he's selling - lower taxes for the rich, the criminalization of abortion, a belligerent foreign policy, and that old-time mantra of "family values" - makes him yet another representative of the small cadre of privileged, arrogant white people who have run roughshod over the rest of us for thirty years.

For all of his seriousness, though, Thompson almost comes across as comical, and not just because he announced his candidacy on "The Tonight Show." Thompson has tried to have it both ways on the abortion issue, declaring his commitment to getting it outlawed even though he spent time as a lobbyist working in favor of a pro-abortion group. Thompson himself married his first wife after he got her pregnant. He did the right thing, but how is the prospective standard bearer for the Republican Party going to talk about "family values" when he got a woman pregnant out of wedlock and had a shotgun wedding? And speaking of shotguns, he is at least consistent on the Second Amendment; he supports gun rights to the hilt.

Thompson's lackadaisical demeanor and his laid-back style may lead some to doubt how serious he is about the Presidency. They may even snicker.

Don't laugh.