Grandpa Fred rides off into the sunset.
He did his job, though — split the religious right vote with Huckabee and saved South Carolina for McCain.
Related posts:
- Late Night: Fred Thompson, Defeatist Underminer of US Troops, Says We’ve Lost the War in Afghanistan
- Minuteman Killer Co-Hosted Anti-Immigration Event in 2007 Featuring Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson
- Fred Hiatt Wants to Know How Well Torture Works, But We Need a Volunteer
- It’s not all Fred Hiatt’s fault
- Early Morning Swim: Special Mark Sanford Takes a Hike Edition
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It’s a Fred Zed!
Guess he ran low on Ensure.
So has anyone told Fred he’s dropped out?
After he wakes up from his nap they’ll give him a cup of warm Ovaltine and let him know.
This can’t be good for the alien and sedative movement. I guess Fred will be the next Thorazine spokesman.
Priceless comment (#10) at Jane’s link…
He’s gotten so much applause from dropping out that he’s considering re- entering the race … *g*
Hope we hear the same news about Guiliani after Florida.
Think he’ll get around to endorsing anyone before the General?
He wasn’t a presidential candidate, he just played one on TV.
If we remind him that there is an election coming up… …sure.
This is bound to break Tweety’s heart. Who will be his next mancrush?
RIP Fred
Its good for republicans.
props to Fred-O, as in prop open his eyelids. let’s hold a-wake.
How ’bout a little applause here for the lobbyist in the red pick-em-up. /S
The Mittster – My what big ears you have! All the better to hear you with..
The Huckster – My…what big eyes you have! All the better to see you with..
The Ghoulster – My…what big teeth you have! All the better to eat with with!!!
Ahhhhhhhhhhh……….
share prices in Old Spice just plummeted.
After months of acting–well, not really–like a presidential candidate to draw votes away from Huckleberry, Hollywood Fred pockets his residuals and heads West while the minions slither back into the BushCo/Romney campaign from whence they no doubt sprang like the snakes on Medusa’s head.
What? No, I didn’t say a word about Mary Matalin…. or Bay Buchanan….
Doing the honourable thing?
I wonder where Tim “the cagey vote grifter” Griffin will end up working now?
I have never, ever seen a more reluctant candidate in my life than Fred. I’m sure he is really relieved to get the hell out of Dodge.
Or Liz Cheney…?
Sort apologies to Punkin’ Haid and Tweety, but does that mean that quitting is now the ”future of the modern GOP”?
Just askin’ is all…
Don’t know why but I have a feeling Freddie’s been seeing a lot of the couch recently – and will in the future as well.
A much more relevant question than the pundits’ crowning of frontrunners — now that the original “none of the above” has dropped out, who will be the new “none of the above”?
Ooh, Number Two drops out, leaving Elizabeth Kucinich in uncontested possession of the Hottest Potential First Lady title, Michelle Obama moves up to second. In other news, the rules committee still has not ruled whether Rudy-Giuliani-in-drag qualifies for inclusion in the statistics.
He may endorse THE General!
A co-worker just showed me a video of Rudy sneaking in a 911 while speaking of the economy on the Daily show. Go to the link and scroll to the last video.
Just curious. Are you in Turkey now?
All snarkery aside, sharing the health issue in our family that Fred Thompson is dealing with… we Sunshines wish him a long and happy nonpolitical life.
Only if you don’t tell anyone he … is a cross-dresser. Hizzoner hates non-loyal chit-chat.
you overlooked “Wayne”
Bill may get some votes, too.
Fred Thompson was running for President? Who knew? /snark
Bob in HI
The creature returns to the lagoon.
I guess I can’t do links. Probably on the home page but it’s pretty funny.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/index.jhtml
Frederick of Hollywood was in the Presidential race? Who knew?
who you kidding? Fred rocks!
It has just occurred to me that Freddy T actually had to pump himself up to present some level of personality for the character, Arthur Branch, he plays on Law and Order. Granted, it ain’t much – Arthur Branch, I mean. I think that Fred’s handlers expected just a bit more energy and enthusiasm than the old boy is capable of. Fred apparently doesn’t have it in him.
Hey Bob,
I swear on a stack of King James’s that I didn’t purloin yer line…
I’ll never forget his campaign stop in Dubuque, Iowa where he actually pandered for some applause. No Link, but I am sure it is on YouTube.
The thing is that he is a “film” actor. He acts in small shots and takes. It isn’t necessary to sustain a character for a long time. Also, you have to keep your voice a little subdued, as opposed to theater where everything is sustained and projected.
Fred Thompson announced that he’s getting back into film acting. He’s reportedly brokering to appear in a remake of The Big Chill. Fred’s a shoo in for the role played by Kevin Costner.
-G
Thompson’s campaign was not so much a run for office as a sleepwalk.
Yes he was compelled to ask for applause. It was a portentious moment. Driving around in mah red pick-up like a reglar rabbit wasn’t quite the formula for success.
Funny. Too much eyeliner. But funny.
OT Dow only down 79. The Ponzi scheme continues…
Who’s grave will the Cheney daughter rob next?
-G
I’m with Jane, he did his job and now he’s going back civilian life. His staff will now scurry back Romney or McCain. His impact on the general election should be nil, this was strictly internal GOP manuvering.
Boxturtle (Looks like the Zombie vote is now up for grabs)
Yes. Why?
LOL
So, did any of the MSM cover his withdrawal after falling for his previous head fake? Or did John McCain just pass along Fred’s handwritten note?
Eat some lamacun (sp) for me :)
I lived in Istanbul for a couple years in the 1990’s. I kinda miss it, although I remember a lot of things driving me absolutely crazy when I was there. I bet it’s not even the same place. Have you been there long?
Edwards is finally getting some positive air time….very good sound bites.
Great minds think alike.
Bob in HI
Open the velvet rope-line and let some more partiers on to the rickety porch!
-G
Hmm. Dunno about this – Huck’s rise really happened very late indeed – way after Thompson entered the race, so the idea that he was only in for that reason strikes me as a stretch. (It could be what kept him in for the last couple of weeks perhaps – but remember how he said he needed 4th in Iowa to stay in…)
Not clear to me there was a master plan..
Thompson out for the count, Giuliani on the ropes, and Huckabee needs to rob a bank somewhere to stay competitive.
Ron Paul numbers due to improve — a lot.
INTERVIEWER
So, Mr. Thompson, what’s next for you?
FRED
Oh….I dunno. Not much to look forward to. Right now I’m thinkin maybe of just shootin’ up, actually.
INTERVIEWER
What?!? Shooting up?!?
FRED
You know. A good enema. Why, what’d you think I meant?
I agree. Even so, Arthur Branch seems to have a bigger personality than the man who portrays him. It takes all the chutzpah Fred can muster to sustain the simple character. Corn pone colloquialisms ’bout the heavy hand o’ justice always being good in the end – that’s our Arthur.
President McCain appoints Fred to the supreme court.
oy vey
This just in … Fred has endorsed Harding
8 years – mostly in Ankara (though I like Istanbul). I’ll eat some lahmacun for you next opportunity I get – there’s a pretty good pideci just acros the road from me. But not tonight, as I’ve just eaten a fairly filling jerusalem artichoke gratin.
What were you doing in Istanbul?
I’d laugh, but I’m starting to get a little sensitive.
I knew there was something bothering me about the title of this thread and it just hit me – After Nixon used it, turns out we STILL wound up having him to kick around some more…
But Huck is still in the race. The media will test itself and annoint St. McCain – but Mitt has religion and money as well.
Does Huck take from McCain and Mitt – or is there a split?
Edwards better stay in the race longer than Rudy.
from americablog.com
I suspect there was a plan, I never said it was a GOOD plan. The GOP seems horribly disorganized and stupid this time around….heck, they managed to get BUSH (s)elected twice and that’s no small accomplishment. It seems like they’re not getting as good advice and their fundraising is pitiful. The word clusterf**k is overused on FDL, but I can’t think of a better word for this.
Weak players, bad strategy, and poor tactics…I’m REALLY looking forward to November.
Boxturtle (Let the beatings commence)
Behold the inscrutable way of the Democrat, Grasshopper. He shows honor by quitting and strength by caving. http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..index.html
I hear ya. Maybe we’re all piling on Fred a little too much.
Edwards can win.
Honey, is that you?
Oh, I totally agree with you!
I don’t think it’s entirely Fred’s fault. He and his people just didn’t realize that the enthusiasm for him before he entered the race was really for “none of the above” (or alternatively, “anyone else has got to be better than these clowns.”) There was only ever support for the idea of his candidacy, not the actual thing.
I just thru up a little bit in my mouth.
No more Fred to kick around? Now if we could only get the same deal from the boys of the Bush family organization.
I take that back. Maybe we need to lay off the old guy.
Teaching English, of course. I worked at Turkish Airlines. It was my first overseas job, so Turkey has special meaning for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get out of Istanbul very much and only saw the bus station at Ankara. Has Turkey changed much in the 8 years you’ve been there? I was there during the Refah days and I remember a lot of people talking about fundamentalism and what would happen if there was ever a civil war, etc. Some of the yabanci were a little spooked. Now that some of the old Refah crowd is power, how is it?
Fred0
8UTCan we make it a chance to kick Tweety and whoever else saw grandpa fred and the future? Since Stewart and Colbert can’t do it as well as we can these day?
I wont breath easy until Rudy has gone away, and to a well-deserved ignominy. Just for starters, permanent boos at Yankee Stadium.
I know what you mean. Any Democrat would appoint better judges.
I hope Fred remembered to send Peggy some flowers before announcing.
Warp speed Chinese fire drill takes too long to type.
I think that’s better. We’ve got no evidence the ‘roids were involved.
Re:
Fred Thompson reminds me of Dottie Parker’s quip about the news that Calvin Coolidge had died. She asked “how could they tell?”
Does this mean JAck McCoy has to move out of the corner office to make way for a renewed and refreshed Arthur Branch?
LawnOrder fans everywhere want to know.
What’s up with this? Is it A Rovian smear? Or something else?
Bill Clinton May Get Payout of $20 Million
http://online.wsj.com/article/…..lenews_wsj
McCain will be faced with “stay in Iraq for 100 years” every 5 seconds of his candidacy if nominated. He cannot win.
Romney can’t win either, because “Fatwa” and “islamofascist” come out of his mouth every 5 seconds…he has a little hope with his financial wizardry though…but, if nominated, I personally will make sure to associate him with Blackwater every chance I get.
That’s what I mean by well-deserved ignominy below @ 82. More of the same would make my day (are Democrats allowed to use that phrase?)
Glennzilla: (same link as #71):
It’s about fucking time our candidates show leadership for a change! (Pun intended.)
you need to stop meeting like this
Robo Rom makes a big point about saving jobs when the opposite is true. Robo Rom was a corporate raider. His primary business activities involved buying companies, gutting them and selling off the fixtures.
Yup, but the Pukes will never hear that, they’ll hear Mitt can save the Homeland from financial disaster created by the Democratic Congress and the Clintons.
Romney might have helped to create jobs – in China.
Huckabee is having money problems.
May pull out of Florida before GOP primary if prospects dim
ORLANDO, Fla. – Battling to stay competitive after his weekend loss in South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is taking new steps to save money, including no longer scheduling planes and buses for journalists trying to cover his presidential campaign.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22781755/
Good assessment, Jane. It’s sad that Huck couldn’t carry South Cackalack.
The more delegates he can carry into the repub convention, the further to the right their platform will be; and that would be very good news for our side.
In fact, the Clinton supporters should have been sending Huck money all along; if the gooper nominating process moves far ENOUGH to the right, Hillary could start looking like a progressive again.
Back to my lurky lair, blushing demurely.
Aides leaving and Staff not taking pay. Sounds like Rudy’s problem.
Doing a fairly good job IMHO – just re-elected with an increased majority after 4 years. Never thought I’d be pleased to see a bunch of religious conservatives winning an election, but there you go. Not much chance of a coup in the near future, I reckon. And I think they pulled off a nifty trick in keeping out of Iraq (mostly) despite pressure from all sorts of directions.
Ankara – well, I can’t say the bus-station is the high-point, but I am reminded of Samuel Johnson’s views about Scotland. On the other hand, if you never got to places like Cappadocia you missed out in a fairly big way (tho’ if you got to Ankara bus station, you must have been going somewhere out East, I guess)
Pelosi and Reid make me want to pewk. Fools.
Funny, according to National Geographic magazine, Florida -Orlando in particular – is a haven for religious fundamentalist mega-churches. What happened to the fundamentals (the money) for Hucklebee? Seems the congregations are tapped out. Trickle down is a bitch.
I find it puzzling that they aren’t all over him. They aren’t going to support Romney or Ghouliani….but they might support….Jeb.
Wish we could take this off list, because its OT, but I’ve been through Turkey from Edirne to Ararat (enroute to and from Iran), back in the 1970s. Many stories to tell. Am interested in what you both were/are doing in Turkey.
Bob in HI
At Sadly No, a commenter said “If a Fred Thompson dropped out in the middle of a race, does it make a sound?”
Don’t kid yourself – Jeb was not particularly popular with folks in Florida when he left office and with the news coming out on the financial shenanigans he supported, he’s even less so.
Sadly no has a whole section on the Christopher Dry Drunk Higgins/Obama kerfluffle, found thru the Daily Kos front page.
Good to hear that.
They might. JEB’s got some baggage. I hope its enough to keep him irrelevant, but those Bush Boys are devious. (JEB had said he had a devious plan to stop the class size ammendment or the bullet train, ICR which.)
Re:
Not if the Trotskyists have anything to say about it!
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2…..-j22.shtml
Romney says Washington needs a CEO to control it…now, there’s some real fascism for ya!!! What kind of fascism to ya call that Mittsolini???
Is Hitchens dry? I thought he was still a wet drunk.
Haven’t we tried that? As I recall, it isn’t working.
Yep, I was on my way to Cappadocia when I saw the bus station. I also got to spend a couple of weeks in Antalya, but that was wasted mostly on work. *sigh*
I agree, but I’m always waiting for the ax to drop and for Turkey to do more than a little ol’ incursion across the border. They’ve got to be thinking its now or never.
LS@90 is spot on:
If Saint John IS nominated, then, by mid-summer, his “a hundred years” statement is going to eat him up like a 16 foot Great White devouring a seal pup. :o)
I purely LOVE watching team-troll fall all over themselves rushing to tell everyone how we’re finally winning. Paying those 50K Sunni insurgents that $300 a month each, and giving them small arms, is nothing but protection money to the mob, to try to give bushCo time to do the corporate-boardroom-boogie. It’s just like the Sopranos. What happens when you stop paying?
Lessseee…a hundreds years at $3 bil a week…that’s mego-bucks, as in my-eyes-glaze-over…but I bet at some point, the american people will put junior’s little petro crusade into the “wasteful government spending” category that the goopers love to shreik about, when they’re trying to protect us from the spendthrift savagery of paying for health care for children.
I just hope the “filing” takes place within the next 9 months. :o)
I guess I spelled dry wrong. I meant to spell it wet.
See you later.
Re:
I envision Fred as the Mayor of Mayberry.
Lest Romney need reminding – Dubya was also a CEO. Dumb as a box of rocks, but a CEO, none the less. Dubya has governed the US the way he ran his companies – into the ground. Will Romney continue the bust out of the US economy? He’s a corporate raider – that’s waht he do.
“He established himself as the dictator of a Fascist regime that valued nationalism, corporatism, militarism, and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda.” Benito Mussolini
That is Bushco and Mittsolini to a “T”.
$300 a month and ammo is no small deal in that AO.
Re:
A DailyKos Diary commenter said it: “Hillary is the Tanya Harding of American politics.”
Snapdragon@115/ I dunno; I think the Turks feel that time is on their side.
I don’t believe they’re much afraid of John McCain’s “war of the Roses” statement about that hundred years. :o)
Every time they rev up their tank engines, the ppb for oil, spikes, and the Dow takes a dip in the opposite direction.
George Bush and the GOP’s family jewels aren’t even CLOSE to being out of the bench vise, and the Turks know it perfectly well.
The Kurds recently postponed that referendum on Kirkuk for 6 months. It’s still a HELL of a millstone around bushCo’s neck. Another postponement to put it on the democrats’ watch is going to cost someone one fuck of a lot of vigorish. We might see the twins mopping the floors of the Kurdish Regional Government’s parliament. :o)
new outrage upstairs
Re:
“Satire, kids, is your sacred duty as Americans. Be funny. Poke them cows and make them moo.” –Garrison Keillor
Just saw John Edwards say he was the only grownup at last night’s debate, but cannot do justice to his sparkling eyes and wide smile.
Raven@122: You jus’ betcha! And don’t the Shiites know it? :o)
They have to be thinking: “This SOB is the whelp of the guy who told us to rise up and toss Saddam, and then hung us out to dry. Does he think we fell off the turnip truck yesterday?” I think the bush technique of playing one side against the other one is about to wear out. At any rate, the parliament seems in no mood to pass that legislation giving bushCo that sweetheart access to Iraq’s oil.
Over the next 9 months, we could be watching the damndest game of “chicken” that the world has ever seen.
Ray@123: That’s the line of the week, if not the month. Thanks for posting it. :o)
sleepy fred for veep! yay!
Gender issue: it’s okay to refer to “Grandpa” Thompson, but Firedoglake would never refer to “Grandma” Pelosi.
No, I’m not a troll. Just sayin.
Good question, Howl.
The Goggle is your friend.
Not only did he fend off Huckabee and his godly hordes, but he also looked so weak and tired that by comparison McCain actually looks alive.