There's A Fred Under Your Bed

The much-needed daddy figure for disillusioned chickenhawks patriots with other priorities drops in to help them refill their spank bank:

Not yet a 2008 candidate, Fred Thompson energized young Republicans with a speech Saturday that was heavy on rhetoric and short on policy pronouncements. He branded Democrats as "the party of despair."

Chants of "Fred" and "Run, Fred, Run," greeted the actor and former GOP senator from Tennessee from many among the 350 people at the Young Republicans National Convention. The crowd interrupted his nine-minute speech with wild applause and mobbed him when he left.

Well, of course they did. What other choices do they have? McCain's almost out, and they're never gonna pull the lever for Mrs. Doubtfire Count Chocula Johnny One-Note Giuliani. That leaves Trust Fund Willard and Rented Red Fred to eventually out-daddy/out-folksy each other for the adoring closet cases in the crowd.

Thompson's speech came on the heels of reports that a pro-abortion rights group hired him to lobby President George H.W. Bush's administration 16 years ago. At issue were attempts to ease a regulation that prevented clinics that received federal money from offering abortion counseling.

Thompson gave an oblique response when asked about the matter, first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

"I'd just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing," said Thompson, who is considering running for president as a social conservative. He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work.

"[T]he flies get bigger in the summertime". Hanh? Is this some sort of yokel code, lobbyist code, or actor code? Oh, I get it. It's a code used by someone who's been a wealthy lawyer, lobbyist, and actor for most of his adult life, to pretend he's part of the demographic that pretends to hate all them folks who think they're better'n them. And I suppose if you spend your days guzzling corn squeezins and harassing lost canoers, you might even buy into it. Nobody fakes authenticity like Big Fred, as any drooling FredHead can tell you.

In his speech, Thompson fired up the crowded when he said he was the top target of The New York Times and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. He said the United States was the greatest country, and that set the audience off, too.

"I'm getting tired of having to apologize for the United States of America around the world," Thompson said. "I'm tired of other people's perceptions that we need to apologize."

He said voters will not support Democratic candidates who are "driving over a left-wing cliff." Thompson added, "I don't think the people are going to turn the keys of this country over to the party of despair."

He may be right. There are plenty of people who would rather turn things over to someone who will pat them on the head and indulge their fantasies, while letting their buddies in the oil, telecom, extraction, defense contracting, and security consulting industries pick our pockets and get us involved in more dumb schemes.

But Thompson draws an interesting dichotomy that astute observers can borrow from. He wants to characterize it as "the party of despair" versus the party of hope. How about a party of realism and common sense versus a party of fantasists, fabulists, and moral reprobates; how about a party of solutions versus a party of enablers? How about a party of laws versus a party of weirdos looking for somebody to project their hangups and anxieties upon?

Later, Romney dropped by the hizzy to rap wif da peeps:

Kevin Fickert, a 22-year-old college student in Los Angeles who originally is from Massachusetts, said he liked Romney's leadership as governor but thinks Thompson has more appeal. "Thompson has this star power about him that I really like," Fickert said.

Before arriving at the convention, Romney took questions from about 150 people in West Palm Beach. He said he would like to use the country's leading marketing minds to help sell the idea of American values in the Middle East.

"People will give up half a day's salary to get a Coca-Cola in some parts of the world. We market Coke well. We market McDonald's well. We market our rap music, our movies, our jeans," Romney said. "We market everything America sells brilliantly, but when it comes to marketing ourselves and what we stand for, we don't do a very good job of it."

This is bullshit as much as Thompson's tired-ass schtick is. We do a great job of marketing our values. There has only been a problem because of the policies of the past few years -- policies which Romney has already said he would either continue or enhance. Marketing ourselves is easy, it's ensuring that we live up to our hype that's been the problem of this administration, and unless and until Romney specifically repudiates those policies and that direction, he's just talking out of his ass again.

Which still puts him slightly ahead of the rest of the GOP meatballs, but obviously that's saying very little.