Fred Thompson and um, the um, Florida GOP debate

Wow, I gotta say I was blown away by Fred Thomps"um" last night. Two months ago Good Ol' Fred was the savior of the Republican party. After two debates he is now fallen behind Mitt Romney, Rudy Guiliani, and depending on which poll you look at Mike Huckabee or John McCain. For a guy who has made his living over the years as an actor you would think that he would be polished and know all the things he wanted to say when it was his turn to speak.

Well, last night I decided to count how many times Senator Thompson said the words "uh" or "um". He was given 8 times to speak last night and the "um" count came to, drumroll please...78! That is a whopping 9.75 "ums" a question. Now I have to admit I have never seen an episode of Law and Order. I did see Die Hard 2 a few months ago and from what I recall he never once said "uh" or um". How is it that a guy who is a member of the screen actors guild can get up in front of an audience and stumble all over himself? Mitt Romney has never been in a movie or a TV show and even he got up there with all his talking points and sounded like the smooth used car salesman that we've all grown accustomed to.

Fred's lost his luster. A few weeks ago after giving a speech he asked the silent audience “Can I have a round of applause?”

So what is going on with Fred? What else is holding him back?

• His wife is old enough to be his daughter. That's a little creppy but we'll give him a pass on that one.
• Prior to his trophy wife he married and divorced the girl he knocked up in high school.
• Even though they had never met Fred served on the advisory board of the legal defense fund for Scooter Libby, the guy who went to jail for not ratting out the Vice President.
• He said he doesn't go to church unless he's visiting his mother.
• He worked as a lobbyist for an abortion rights group (Fred's pro-life).
• He was a lobbyist for a company that paid him $750,000 to get reduced payouts for asbestos-related claims due to criminal negligence.
• Oh yeah, he's old.

Fred Thompson reminds me of that Quarter Pounder with Cheese combo meal you see on the commericials. Its looks really big and juicy. You can harldy wait to sink your teeth into it. Then you order it and it's a lot smaller than you had hoped, really greasy and the fries are stale. Good Ol' Fred looked really good when you saw him on Law and Order. Now that he is a candidate for President it's time to vote for someone else.