Time to start looking into his closet of skeletons and find out which ones can be the most useful against him.

Let the research begin !

"A nation that continues to make distinctions between its fighting man and its thinking man will have its fighting done by fools and its thinking done by cowards." - Thucydides

fred can, if he would be so kind, just go away, and take his running mate, sam waterston with him... the unity party, indeed... baloney...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

He'll appeal to all the knuckledraggers. Of course, his base has no idea that America's overthrow of a secular nationalist--and democratically elected--president in Iran in the 1950s allowed us to replace the UK as the "Great Satan" in the ME. But when did facts matter to Southern Republicans?

Exemplifies what James Walcott labeled southern republicans: "mean and dumb".

I read that Sam Waterston wants to see a Unity party candidate run in 2008. He and Thompson plan to run as a ticket. What a joke.

So when did two old white guys become a "unity ticket"? Do they think diversity is vanilla and vanilla bean?

I actually do like the show--but Thompson has only a very minor role. Keep him as an actor in a television hit show-we do not need another actor in the White House.

would help if he could at least spell.

steve: tell me you copy/pasted it and that the spelling errors are his not yours.

I can't speak to his "historical" accuracy on sparta and persia -- but his recent history is askew by a large margin as to who was financing what in Lebanon last Summer!

And I agree with the post above pointing to U.S. complicity (guilt) in overthrowing the first elected democracy in the middle east: Iran.

No American - including Thompson - is in any position to point fingers at the radical tendencies of the Iranian underclass aided, abetted and created U.S. policy -- of the 1950's, those of '79 or those of today.

Thompson is a joke and so are his statements.

Fred Thompson has had a fine public service career and is contributing to the policy debate at AEI.

However, with all due respect, the only campaign he should be preparing for is against Jimmy Smits in trying to resurrect NBC’s West Wing.

I have never been very impressed with Thompson. I don't think he is stupid but he has always seemed sort of like a "ignorant and proud of it" type.

I hope Clark and Hagel are waiting in the wings...

"But the Iranians have filed a flurry of complaints with the United Nations, claiming 300 is "cultural and psychological warfare." Who are these guys who are getting all flushed over our cultural insensitivity?"

"People who want to blow Jews off the face of the earth. The regime that stormed our embassy in 1979 and kept Americans captive for 444 days. Iran's Hezbollah puppets have killed more Americans, than any other terrorist group except Al Queda. Explosive devices from Iran are being used right now against our soldiers in Iraq. They're clearly more skittish about cultural warfare than the sort that actually kills people -- like the one against Israel that Iran financed just a few months ago."

Well, we've managed to kill six hundred and some odd thousand Iraqi non-combatants, so it seems to me that we are much more efficient at terrorism than Iran is.

I don't want to get in the middle of the usual barrage against one of the prospective candidates Steve mentions from time to time. In this case some commenters on this board seem to be attacking one of the characters Thompson has played from time to time more than they are Thompson himself.

Actually, Thompson had a fair reputation as a legislator, by modern standards. I don't really understand why he'd be running this year, though. Hagel at least has a reason -- he objects strongly to the administration's policy on Iraq. Giuliani and Romney have public notoriety and working campaign organizations. McCain does too, and has a record on a lengthy list of issues as well.

Thompson bailed out of the political business a couple of years ago, neither backing up the administration when the going got tough nor fighting any battles against it when it was wrong. And it doesn't really sound as if he disagrees with President Bush on much of anything. Perhaps, like Hagel, he's holding out hope that the frontrunners will just collapse -- that Giuliani will divorce and remarry again, McCain's bus will go off a cliff and so forth -- allowing him to reach for the nomination on the back of party conservatives, meaning Bush loyalists. Unless the Democratic candidate collapses as well, though, I don't see how that brings Thompson to the White House. Once a candidate had the nomination, the value of being identified with the unpopular President would drop dramatically. So what would be the point of Thompson's running?

I'll grant that ol' Fred has the charisma and communication skills to be the second coming of Ronald Reagan. More authentic and a better actor.

But why trust a guy who can't even spell "sheer"? Tommy Thompson can beat that. Here's why.

The rhetoric's beguilingly folksy--but it's troubling to see anyone lie so effortlessly. A little deja vu. "Explosive devices from Iran are being used right now against our soldiers in Iraq"--even though the NYTs showed IUF's are being manufactured in Iraq? Sunnis account for most attacks against--hey, why am I even bothering?

Isn't Fred Thompson a little late to the Party of Lies? Isn't the fig leaf so tattered at this point it doesn't quite cover the shriveled rationale for war?

I love the way Thompson says "If I remember my history, that's exactly what happened."

Little problem. Thompson does'nt remember his history: Was it "The [Iranian] reGIME that stormed our embassy in 1979"? Does Thompson not recall the CIA's training of SAVAK, which tortured Iran's own citizens?

Fred Thompson is George Orwell. He inverts the historical lesson: the determined Spartans DEFENDING their country against an invading horde--well, that perfectly describes the Iraqis, doesn't it? Right down to suicide bombers regretting they have but one life to give. That Nathan Hale was such an extremist.

Plus, we've already GOT American freedom. Our 'Spartans' aren't saving anything. We're halfway around the world, and the embattled, desperate nation we invaded and occupied is paying the price: they lost their Thermopylae.

Fred Thompson eagerly commits the very same slur that he denies the existence of. But then, he's reading from the same neocon script every other mouthpiece has. Isn't that reason enough for the electorate to run screaming in the opposite direction? He's the Fran Townshend of candidates.

I mean, I realize that Mara Liasson and DC has a big crush on ol' Fred, but even Tommy Thompson learns from his mistakes. And no one can say that about George Bush or the DC foreign policy establishment. Six years on, and DC just 'isn't ready for prime-time.' Not fielding another actor and reading from the same script, they're not.

Well I am not voting for anyone who begins with the Israel pandering, Arab demonizing, hell fire and damnation get another war on. Period. I'd rather vote for Putin.

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03152007.html

Didn't he play a corrupt politician once? Was it real life or the movies? Or both?

must say that I'm impressed that Hollywood took on a politically incorrect villan

The Persians of 2000 years ago are politically incorrect villains? The man is an idiot.

I'm not being overly cynical above. But plain & simple, it's fair to say that another folksy savior (like Reagan, like Bush), reading from the same discredited script, is deserving of criticism.

Given what the GOP has brought us, is more of the same even an option?

The Republicans will need to do a lot of 'reaching' to compete in 2008. They're recycling Tom DeLay (MTP Sunday)--because he's got no credibility left to lose--and anyone else repeating those same tired lines goes down in flames. Yet Fred Thompson's gonna try it? It's not the script-reader or messenger--it's the message.

480 AD?
I don't think so.

I wouldn't say it was exactly the Iranian regime that stormed our embassy in 1979, but they certainly seemed to be happy as a clam about it after the fact. The fact that the hostages were held for 444 days is pretty solid evidence that the Iranian regime condoned the takeover.

Definitely 480 BC
By AD 480 greece was the remaining part of the roman empire. No such thing as a spartan king any more.
Though they still were fighting with their easter n neighbours.

Thompson is a RINO:

In favor of McCain-Feingold.

Voted against tax cuts in favor of the Clinton “balanced budget.”

Voted against the 1998 GOP budget.

Voted against removing common good export controls.

Voted against tax deductions for college tuitions.

Think Rudy is a social RINO? Thompson is a fiscal RINO.