We won't have Fred Thompson to kick around for long. He's completely muddled on the issues -- can't even get conservatism right.

It's only day two and the great white hope for the GOP is already trying to have it both ways on an issue at the top of his target base's agenda.

Ouch.

All this extra time to prepare, and Thompson doesn't have a coherent policy (or, at least, talking points) about either Iraq or gay marriage? He knew he was running as a Republican, right?

Here's a hint, Fred; better brush up on the whole abortion thing.

The same crowd who loved George Bush will love Fred Thompson for exactly the same reason.

In every news piece written on Thompson, does it not, somewhere in the first two paragraphs mention his height? And his kick-ass TV character?

Read Glenn Greenwald's piece on the pseudo machismo veneer of the conservative body politic...and all becomes clear.

Fred Thompson is at least as good an actor as Ronald Reagan, and his linebacker stature makes cheerleader Bush look like NR Mark Hemingway's "sissy Mary".

Do the non-Petreaus math...Thompson doesn't have to be a sharp-shooting, silver-tongued politician...he plays one on TV.

They love that in the corn belt.

Answer: The Möbius strip of Presidential candidates -- someone with only one surface and one edge, as impossible to nail down as Jello with a hammer. Who can understand him or his positions -- even HE doesn't appear to understand them.

Why he's vaulted to become a leading Republican presidential candidate is one of today's deepest mysteries.

Not just the mediocre actor with the trophy second wife with the ginormous cans (thanks to Stephanie Miller for the choice description!), but the moron Republican.

If his little amendment had been the law of the land in 1967, interracial marriage would probably STILL be illegal in most of the South.

Fred better learn to shut his ugly pie hole the hell up once in a while, lest he stick his corn- and bunion-covered foot in it too many times. What happens when someone brings up his embarassing role in the Watergate scandal...? This is going to be delicious, I can tell.

A somewhat off-topic rant now: Why does ANYONE care what some old asshole in Iowa thinks, anyway? Why does ANYONE think it's acceptable that the MSM pass off intolerance, stupidity and sponging off the wealthier coastal states as "old-fashioned American values"?! Why are my tax dollars going to support these idiots?

is going to be a lot of fun. LIke watching that guy that cut you off on the highway get pulled over by the cops!

it's a slippery constitutional slope when you start declaring what is deviancy is. Who knows, they might pass laws that make it illegal a dried up corpse like yourself marrying someone who is younger then your children.

Just like Osama and Bush, he hates the rule of law, especially as embodied in the Bill of Rights. In order to get elected, this twerp would gladly swallow the sticky-white-stuff of the religious right nut-jobs.

Religious war forever! As if the 100 years was wasn't enough.

RichEmery writes, "Why he's vaulted to become a leading Republican presidential candidate is one of today's deepest mysteries."

Actually, it's a pretty shallow mystery.

The G.O.P. electorate is very dissatisfied with their slate--they've never trusted John McCain, Mitt Romney will too obviously say anything to get elected, and Rudy Giuliani is no social conservative.

Meanwhile, Moderates and even Republicans are sick of Bush, sick of Iraq and looking to 2008 as a year of change. And the Republicans don't have an incumbent Republican running for re-election or a vice-president.

Republicans are desperate.

So they're pouring all of their hopes and dreams into a T.V. star--"I don't know what he believes, so he must believe what I believe!" As such, Thompson is perfect. Until he opens his mouth.

Then he goes from "Great White Hope" to "Great White Hype."

"I would support a constitutional amendment which says some off-the-wall court decision in one state that recognizes the marriage in one state, like Massachusetts, just to pick a state, cannot go to another state and have it recognized in that state."

I've read that sentence over and over, trying to make sense of it, looking for the noun that goes with the verb, and as best I can tell, he's saying that a court decision "cannot go to another state and have it recognized in that state." Who knew that court decisions were such mobile little devils? Are they, like, the legal equivalent of Roombas, wandering wherever the spirit takes them?

A few more gems like that, and Fred had better hope HE'S not recognized in any state -- at least by editors...

I think he means that he'd support an amendment decreeing that states are not bound by other states' rulings. Which is like supporting an amendment that says states cannot encroach on one another's boundaries. Back off, Massachusetts!! The Brooklyn Bridge is ours!!

Hey Fred!! Mr. Lawyer Guy!! That's already the case! Always has been, always will be.

Amazingly, his second proposition, that federal judges must have their decisions codified by the legislature, is even loopier. What part of "separate branches of government" does he not understand?

And what if states decided to pass "defense of marriage" acts stating that people must marry within, say, their own AGE RANGES?

But this is only Day 2 of the Thompson campaign.

Good Lord Deliver Us.

"Hey Fred!! Mr. Lawyer Guy!! That's already the case! Always has been, always will be."

Well, not quite. The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution gives legitimacy to his idiotic amendment idea. I'd say that if he was more effective on the stump, that idea would be a good bogeyman to raise while campaigning.

Article. IV.

Section. 1.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section. 2.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

*************************************************

These paragraphs guarantee that all US citizens have the same rights and privileges and responsibilities no matter which state they are in at the moment. This is why your car is yours in New York or Oregon and why your driver's license is good in Montana and South Carolina. It's why your adopted children remain yours when you cross state lines.

If a state already has a law in conflict with another state's opposing law, the earlier law prevails in the first state.

Our federal system is laboratory in which states can test legislative techniques and options without changing other states' laws. This is the basis for the states' rights arguments used by conservatives over the past two centuries.

Mr. Thompson is proposing upending 218 years of constitutional precedent and protection because gays can marry in Massachusetts?! Doesn't that confer special rights on gays?