Error Apparent By: Mark W Adams

Publius (the blogger at Obsidian Wings, not the pseudonymous Founding Father in the Federalist Papers) has analyzed the Fred Thompson campaign -- and found it over.

Too bad, really. I was getting a kick out of new and improved reasons to poke fun at the guy. Hell, I haven't even gotten to the child labor law infraction he's been accused of, or the fact that he went through more campaign staffers than McCain before he even made his candidacy official.

You know you're going to have trouble getting the GOP nomination when even Powerline features a cartoon with you and the horse you rode in on. Andy Sullivan also gets in on the act ...

Thompson is the anti-anxiety medication for a troubled America. I'm just not sure a sedative is what the country really needs right now. A wake-up call would be more appropriate.

But if you think that's bad, get a load of today's New York Times. It seems that Mr Thompson did some legal work for Libyan terrorists:

A little over three years after Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, Fred D. Thompson provided advice to a colleague about one of his law firm’s new clients: The man representing the two Libyan intelligence officials charged in the terrorist bombing.

This was no casual conversation. Thompson charged the clients 3.5 hours for his contributions to their defense. (There was no indication whether they got a discount for the time grandpa napped during the meeting.)

Now let's not get into the argument that everyone deserves a legal defense, etc. That's fine when you're a Democrat. That pitch might have a chance at resonating with our approach to government, social evolution and respect for fairness and the judicial system -- but it'd still be a tough sell. However, when you're running for the Law & Order party that is hell bent on whipping up the terrorist boogeyman for yet another election cycle, being a mouthpiece for a terrorist mass murderer just won't do.

Sorry Mr. Thompson. Thanks for playing. NEXT!

Naturally, Fred's aborted campaign will be the media's fault -- at least according according to Wingnuttystan. Hollywood will somehow be blamed for refusing to anoint one of their own. That damn liberal media. Just look at the crap they pull, and have been pulling for years now.

PandAmanda examines how the bias of the "liberal" media almost swept Al Gore into office. Whew ... if it hadn't been for a Supreme Court majority dedicated to States Rights and escewing partisanship, they might have gotten away with it.

Everything in this article is jaw-dropping horror, but I have a special love for this quote:

On two consecutive nights of Hardball, Chris Matthews brought up this same trio as examples of Gore’s ‘delusionary’ thinking. ‘What is it, the Zelig guy who keeps saying, ‘I was the main character in Love Story. I invented the Internet. I invented Love Canal.…’ It reminds me of Snoopy thinking he’s the Red Baron.’

There is nothing in that comment that is true. Not just the lies about Gore’s lies, mind you, but that Snoopy thought he was the Red Baron is also bullshit. Snoopy was a WWI Fighting Ace fighting the Red Baron in his fantasies. Granted, it’s just a silly mistake, but considering that everything else he said was a malicious lie, there’s almost something darkly funny about the fact that he can’t even get the Snoopy thing right. That’s a cosmic level of bullshit right there.

Now that's some first class picking of nits. Well Done!

Interesting thing about that liberal media label, at least in this case. Just remember that it was Fox News that took great pains to point out that Grampa Fred tooled around Iowa in a golf cart wearing Gucci loafers. Why does Fox News hate supply-side economics?

For a taste of what might be hte media actually waking up and gazing at something beyond their own navels, NTodd plays Firewall Fairy, serving up all of Sunday's Rich, Dowd and Friedman -- who all sound startlingly sane (if you forget everything else they've written for the last decade).

Naturally, our favorite today will be Frank Rich, so read him for the seer enjoyment of agreeing with someone who has been calling the Bush Administration on their lies since 2003. But for our lesson in the awakening of self-awareness in the punditry, see Miss Manners, that judge and jury of all things fittingly macho.

Dying for a daddy, the Republicans turn their hungry eyes to Fred.

Fred Thompson acts tough on screen. And like Ronald Reagan, he has a distinctively masculine timbre and an extremely involved wife.

*** [BUT]*** --ed.

Fred is not Ronnie; he’s warmed-over W. President Reagan always knew who the foe was.

Gawd. Has there ever been a journalist more flagrantly need of sexual activity than Maureen Dowd? Honestly, from Teh Clenis, Gore's apparel, Kerry's effeminate, French-like Cheese Whiz gaff, Edwards and even Romney's hair -- WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE DO MO-DO!

Yet, not to be undone by the mere fact that her heartthrob Freddy is married to a younger, blonder and better build harpy than Dowd herself, she actually does two things quite out of character. She makes fun of women swooning over the "burly" Thompson because he's really not a real man, but just play-acting. Creating the "illusion of a masculine mystique."

Yeah, that's the ticket Mo.

Treading on such unfamiliar ground was not enough for her, however. Astonishingly, she crosses a line I thought I'd never read. MoDo criticizes a Republican politician on substance, using a policy argument when Thompson stated, "I think bin Laden is more of a symbolism than he is anything else."

Can we please get someone in charge who will stop whining that Osama is hiding in “harsh terrain,” hunt him down and blast him forward to the Stone Age?

Fred must have missed the news of the administration’s intelligence estimate in July deeming Al Qaeda rejuvenated and “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” to Americans.

Nice Maureen. Almost as impressive as Friedman saying, "Above all, Iraq teaches us that democracy is possible only when people want both pillars of it — liberty and self-government — and build both themselves. We’re miles away from that in Baghdad."

Yep, that was Mr. FU himself. Evidently he's ran out of FU's and has turned enough corners to be back at the beginning, with no progress in sight. If this guy's not banging the stay-the-course drum, there's nobody left to clap-louder anymore.