Watch Me Crank Dat Laz-E-Boy
John Tabin was hard on Fred Thompson yesterday, and I beat up on him in my upcoming Nevada/South Carolina predictions thread, so I disagree completely with Jonathan Adler:
The biggest knock on Fred is that he does not appear to want it enough, and did not spend years preparing for a Presidential race. Yet as I've said before, in a rational world, this attitude toward political office would be a feature not a bug.
The time to make this argument was early in 2007, when the first "Draft Fred" murmurs started. After a few months of dithering and winking about running for president, Fred couldn't say he was a citizen politician pulled into this like Cincinattus. That delay was callow: It's pretty obvious that Fred wouldn't have run if his friend John McCain hadn't stumbled early on, or if McCain recovered in July or August.
Also, a "rational world" would, yes, include a lot more citizen legislators who didn't obsess about power. It would not contain more lazy politicians. There's no job where "he doesn't seem to want it, he hasn't spent years working for it" would be a plus. Would shareholders elect someone this way? Would teams draft players this way? Would you be happy if one of your colleagues got promoted over you because, hell, he didn't seem to want it quite so much?
There was always a role for a government-shrinking, no-bullshit conservative in this race. There was never a role for a otiose anti-politician with a deep bass voice.