Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

When Fred Thompson announces [today] . . . the former Senator/actor will start with a clean slate in the hoof-in-mouth department. His Republican opponents have had six months to say stupid things, and they have made the most of them.

Rudy Giuliani had to back off telling Barbara Walters that his wife would attend cabinet meetings and, more recently, his claim to have spent more time at 9/11 Ground Zero than the firefighters.

Mitt Romney has been so busy that Ana Marie Cox on her Time blog had to expand his Top Ten Gaffes to eleven, including the easily disproved claim to have been a hunter all his life, attributing a Castro slogan to Free-Cuba fighters in front of audience of them, misstating French marriage laws, and making an admiring statement about Hitler’s energy policy, among so many others.

If Newt Gingrich decides to run, the floodgates of flubs would overflow.

But Thompson has the potential to catch up. He will no doubt ace his Jay Leno interview this week, but when he has to start defending his positions and his resume, Thompson’s tendency to be casual about such subjects as invading Iran is sure to emerge. . . .

His private life could be fertile ground as well. Thompson has made light of his avid “chasing” as a bachelor but some of the ladies may surface to provoke uncomfortable questions.

His campaign has intimated his young wife is a lawyer and experienced political operative, but a closer look at the facts suggests a simpler story line: They met at a Tennessee barbecue, and she followed him to Washington where he got her a job. She did work in a law office but not as a lawyer.

Fred Thompson’s long teaser non-campaign has raised high expectations, but starting next week, he will only be the tallest of the Republican pygmies trying to play Ronald Reagan and make voters forget George Bush.

-- ROBERT STEIN

Earlier today, Senator Fred Thompson, who, of course, was a former star of "Law & Order," confirmed with his supporters that he is running for president. Then, afterward, Thompson promised to solve the Iraq crisis by the end of the episode.

-- CONAN O’BRIEN

Well if Fred Thompson doesn't declare pretty soon, he's going to find out the primary happened without him if this political leapfrogging to be first continues at this pace. Which might not be such a bad thing. The more he talks, the more he sounds like Bush. Watch for yourself.

He's got the Bush role internalized, right down to the vaguely butchered language. If we leave Iraq, the whole region "will become nuclearized?" Fred is the new Bush, only old, and with jowls.

I'm left with two impressions. Thompson is a terrible off the cuff public speaker and the more weight he loses, the older and somewhat sickly he looks.

-- LIBBY SPENCER

It’s clear that [Larry] Craig’s de-resignation would be very bad news for the national party. The question I’m struggling with is why Craig should give a damn. Watching decades-long friends turn on you in a day has a way of clarifying things. (See also Joe Lieberman). The national leadership acted fast to strip him of power and push him out. But . . . there’s one power they can’t strip – they can’t force him out of the Senate. Only the people of Idaho can do that. And only in 2008. If he resigns now, it would basically be for the good of the GOP. But again, if they’ve written him off and turned on him and denounced him, why should he care? The GOP's efforts to push him out have re-aligned pre-party incentives (i.e., structural incentives that predated the rise of political parties). Craig’s calculation now has nothing to do with the national party and everything to do with the people of his state. (See also Joe Lieberman). And even if his state doesn't support him, why shouldn't he stay just for meanness? What exactly does he owe the GOP these days, anyway?

-- PUBLIUS

The way things are going, the first votes in the 2008 Presidential election may yet be cast in 2007, more than 10 months before the national elections next November. This is not an improvement.

In a little-noticed move this week, Wyoming Republicans moved their party conventions to January 5, beating out Michigan, which just moved its primaries to January 15. State laws in Iowa and New Hampshire require those states, in turn, to leapfrog Michigan and Wyoming, potentially pushing one or both elections into December. So voters in those two states might have to interrupt their holidays to participate in a Presidential primary campaign better held during a much less busy season.

This maneuvering continues a Presidential election process that is changing in ways that make it both longer, yet paradoxically less reflective, than ever.

-- THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

We normally think of "High Broderism" as the worship of bipartisanship for its own sake, combined with a fake "pox on both their houses" attitude. But in reality this is just the cover [columnist David] Broder uses for his real agenda, the defense of what he perceives to be "the establishment" at all costs. The establishment is the permanent ruling class of Washington, our betters who know better. It is their rough agenda which is sold as "centrism" even when it has no actual relationship with the political center in a meaningful way. Democracy's messy, in Broder's world, and passionate voters are problematic. It is up to the Wise Old Men of Washington to implement the agenda, and the job of the voters to bless them for it. When the establishment fails, the most important issue is not their failure, but that the voters might begin to lose faith in and deference for their betters. Thus, people must always be allowed to save face, no matter what their transgressions, as long as they're a part of his permanent floating tea party.

While this basic attitude isn't unique to Broder, his apparent lack of interest in the actual details of policy makes him a more absurd figure than some. For him it's not about results, but about the right people being in the right places. It is terribly elitist in all the wrong ways. Arguments can be made for certain types of elitism - you do want a brain surgeon conducting brain surgery - but Broder's elites are simply aristocrats. It's their town.

-- ATRIOS

Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism.

In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him.

The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America's first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas. . . . "But don't you realize -- that's where I sail!" may stand as Kennedy's most self-incriminating quote.

-- FROMA HARROP

Did Senators and House members learn anything while they were gone from Washington? What did the members hear while they were out on recess? We can assume they got an earful of criticism, given what they did and did not accomplish. The Polling Report.com. reports on current Congress - Job Rating figures. They show approvals percentages mostly in the low 20s, with Gallup at 18.

How could this group be so clueless? Perhaps it is due to the fog of war. Do those who represent us need night vision goggles to see what the public sees? Democrats and Republicans, who compromised away our constitutional Fourth Amendment civil liberty protections in a late night rush to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and leave town, may have thought they were exercising bipartisanship. But it was complete surrender to the Bush administration's dark designs on unrestrained Executive power. The weapons used against legislators was raising fears of being accused of being unpatriotic and weak on fighting terrorism.

-- CAROL GEE

Cartoon by Pat Oliphant/Universal Press Syndicate