8
2005
I am not exactly sure what President Bush hopes to accomplish with his decision to hire actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson as an escort for whomever he decides to nominate to the Supreme Court.
Thompson has had one of the more interesting public careers out there. First he's a Watergate lawyer. Then he's a Tennessee lawyer. Then he's an actor. Then he's a Senator. Now he's an actor again. And, it seems, charged with wowing Senators and, one suspects, the press with his "star" power.
If this works, the U.S. Senate is filled with more fools than I thought. And I didn't set the barrier very high, believe me.
There are two things that could be going on here. Recruiting Thompson is an indication that Bush is seriously thinking of nominating Gonzalez who – if his confirmation hearings for the Attorney General's job were any guide – is not ready for primetime grilling. The guy's too much of a lawyer. That's fine when people think your job is to fight terrorism – and where the measure is entirely based on how well you do domestically -- but when you're going to be a Supreme Court justice the stakes are different. He plays dodge ball: Feint to the left, feint to the right, stand up, say nothing, fight, fight fight.
Straight-talking twangy Fred from the TV, now he can be trusted. And, well, he's got more juice than Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. It'll come in handy.
The other possibility is even more insulting: Thompson's TV show, Law & Order does really well among women, particularly career women of a certain age: Yours and mine. These women are the folks likely to be the most interested in the next Supreme Court nominee in part because whoever gets the nod will be replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, the first woman nominated for the job. Not to mention all the Roe v. Wade stuff out there.