Fred Thompson Wins 25 Percent of Cheney Family Vote*

Stephen Hayes, who's quickly become the Edward R. Murrow of the Fred Thompson beat, has a new scoop:

Fred Thompson is adding more big-name policy talent as his testing-the-waters committee continues to grow into a real presidential campaign. Among the new additions: Mark Esper, national security adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist; Joel Shin, a top policy staffer on Bush-Cheney 2000; and Elizabeth Cheney, a former top official in the State Department's Near East and South Asia department.

Wait… Elizabeth Cheney?

Liz Cheney, the older of Vice President Dick Cheney's two daughters, served most recently as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs and coordinator for Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiatives. That title–no doubt one of the longest in the federal government–means that Cheney was on the leading edge of President Bush's effort to bring democratic and market-based reform to the region.

That's a nice way of putting it, like saying "Roberto Goizueta was on the leading edge of bringing dynamic change and a bold new taste to the Coca-Cola formula." Although, of course, our policies in the greater Middle East have been more successful than our policies in Iraq. Reason's sum-up of the Thompson bid is looking more and more prescient:

If you liked the Bush era but wished the president's voice had a little more bass, Thompson's the one.

*Headline reference here, second item.