Thompsons Don't Take a Dump, Son, Without a Plan.

David Weigel | May 30, 2007

Good news, everybody! Fred Thompson is re-uniting with his pickup truck and running for president.

Thompson's formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson's first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal. A testing-the-waters committee is to be formed June 4 so Thompson can start raising money, and staffers will go on the payroll in early June, the organizers said. A policy team has been formed, but remains under wraps.

Thompson has played the media masterfully, dominating the horse race 2008 news for two months without ever answering a tough question. Witness his bubble bath interview with Sean Hannity, where Thompson theorizes that "the reason Americans are so fed up with politics" is that people with cameras keep trying to catch politicians embarrassing themselves. He's churned out radio commentaries that were reprinted by National Review Online, which go a little ways toward exposing his philosophy - hawkish, anti-Fairness Doctrine (good). Radley Balko had some questions about one of those commentaries, and once Thompson is a candidate maybe he'll answer them.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty fact-checks the Politico.

UPDATE II: You know who'd be a perfect guy to run a presidential campaign? Somebody hip-deep in the U.S. Attorneys scandal.