Lazy Fred Thompson

3:12 pm EST June 1st, 2007 | Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Hollywood actor Fred Thompson has as much energy as a June bug that’s been squashed by a pitcher of Mint Julep.

One of the biggest (and longstanding) knocks against the former senator is that he doesn’t have the heart for the race or the job. In short: He’s lazy. A campaign that relies on pithy lines and the Internet feeds the lounge-chair image. It looks like he’s trying to elevate laziness into a virtue. Several of Thompson’s rivals, who know him from his time in Washington, elaborate on that theme. He wasn’t known for his hard work in the Senate. Exhibit A, they say, was the 1997 campaign-finance hearings he chaired, which he started with a bang by promising grand disclosures but ended in a fizzle without uncovering much.

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10 Responses to “Lazy Fred Thompson”

  1. Rheinhard says:
    June 1, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    Laziness is underrated! Especially in politicians!

    Laziness is one of the prime motivators of technological innovation: “I’m annoyed having to do this repetitive stupid task, let me make up something that will do it for me!”

    And lazy politicians, while usually not accomplishing anything great, usually also don’t accomplish anything terribly evil either. If you have trouble getting out of bed before noon it’s hard to be invading other people’s countries, killing their leaders, and converting them to Christianity. And after all the energetic, passionate ideologues in this administration, I think the Executive branch needs a healthful dose of laziness!

  2. Nimrod Gently says:
    June 1, 2007 at 3:31 pm

    Could he possibly be lazier than the present incumbent?

  3. SaveFarris says:
    June 1, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    Better to be lazy than tired.

  4. mdhawk says:
    June 1, 2007 at 4:46 pm

    Farris – that makes no damned sense at all.

    Actually, it’s not better to be lazy than tired.

    Tired implies that you have ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING.

    Lazy implies that you would rather sit on your ass than accomplish something at the end of the day.

  5. mdhawk says:
    June 1, 2007 at 4:46 pm

    Farris – that makes no damned sense at all.

    Actually, it’s not better to be lazy than tired.

    Tired implies that you have ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING.

    Lazy implies that you would rather sit on your ass than accomplish something at the end of the day.

  6. SpiderJ says:
    June 1, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    Also, better to admit your slips of the tongue instead of insisting that your words were never said or are being taken out of context by the Librul Media.

  7. Wilbur says:
    June 1, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    Since the 28 percenters still have a major schoolgirl crush on a man who admits that he only reads the headlines, knocks off work at 5:00, and takes more vacations than the last several presidents combined, laziness is a major plus for Thompson in his wooing of the Republican base.

    In fact, this is precisely what’s wrong with the other GOP candidates in the eyes of the true believers: they work too damn hard!

  8. ann says:
    June 1, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    Chris Kelly, over at Huffpo, has a great post about Thompson’s face lift. “A B-grade actor with thin credentials.” The gopers are truly desperate.

  9. Duros62 says:
    June 1, 2007 at 6:17 pm

    When Fred Thompson chairs a committee, he really chairs a committee!

    Ba-dum bum, ching!

  10. Paine in the Ass says:
    June 1, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    There is nothing tough or folksy about Fred Thompson. He is but an actor—a con man—who has spent years honing both his tough-guy and down-home demeanor to fool the public. Thompson is the ultimate faker—a flimflammer with a red pickup truck that is being brought out by the GOP for his next scam on the political stage.

    Here’s what the mainstream media won’t tell you about Snake Oil: He’s spent a good part of his political career in craven endeavors. From 1975 to 1992 Thompson was a lobbyist for corporations such as Westinghouse and General Electric, and most notoriously, the Tennessee Savings and Loan League.

    Actors make good con men and con men make good actors. And in 1982, Thompson was vigorously lobbying for legislation to deregulate the Savings and Loan industry although he knew it could destroy the foundations of the institution. The deregulation that ensued gave the thrifts the freedom to invest in risky speculations and gamble away the savings of U.S. consumers.

    The Savings and Loan debacle was the crowning moment of the Bush Oligarchy. Over one thousand thrift institutions collapsed and hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their life savings. The ultimate cost of the crisis was $150 billion and George H.W. Bush bailed out the thrifts to the tune of $125 billion, which contributed greatly to the largest budget deficits this country had ever seen to that point. These deficits heralded the 1990-91 recession, one of the lowest points of our nation’s economic viability since the Great Depression.

    John Kenneth Galbraith called the Savings and Loan Scandal, “the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance, and larceny of all time.”