Posted by
Scott Ott on Saturday, December 29, 2007 9:14:34 AM
by Scott Ott
Perpetually ill-at-ease in front of the camera, his head shakes ceaselessly sending tsunamis of flesh rolling along his ample jowels. He clears his throat so frequently you'd think he had a toothpick wedged in his glottis crosswise. He ought to consider a tracheotomy. He doesn't smile often. When he does children cry.
When speaking off-the-cuff, his deliberate pacing turns sound bites into feature-length films. When posing for pictures his face betrays that he'd rather be getting acupuncture on his eyeball. His towering frame guarantees that most impromptu TV shots will angle up, distorting his head into a shape reminiscent of a honey-baked ham.
In the game of presidential campaigning, where appearing slick and unruffled while wading through a pool of mutant pirahna is a prerequisite, Fred Thompson just can't do it. He can't act.
Oddly enough, he's the only candidate with significant dramatic credits in the
Internet Movie Database (unless you count John McCain's cameo as an office staffer in an episode of '24' and his hosting of Saturday Night Live).
If you've seen Fred Thompson act in movies and on TV, you know he's no slouch. He gets paid good money to convince people that he's a general, an admiral, a district attorney, or even the president of the United States. In real life, it took him four months to convince people that he was even running for president.
Perhaps it's solidarity with striking Hollywood writers which prevents him from "crossing the picket line" and exercising his thespian gift as he campaigns.
Or maybe Fred Thompson just feels in his bones that this endeavor is too serious for stagecraft. Maybe he's trying his level best to be the person he is, so America knows what to expect from their president.
Even Ronald Reagan's closest associates never saw a man the rest of us didn't know.
You might disagree with Fred Thompson's
stance on immigration or defense. You might quibble with his
philosophy of
federalism. But behind the closed door of the Oval Office, most Americans want a president whose Secret Service bodyguard could write a tell-all memoir so devoid of revelations it would sell poorly even on the "bargain" table at Barnes & Noble.
He may never 'get his act together', or master the performance art of politics. But America doesn't need a president who seems to be.
Fred Thompson is.
And perhaps that's not so terrible.