Fred Thompson is NOT running!

After all, he keeps saying so. Yet no one even among Repubs seems entirely happy with their roster of candidates. Some people are even beginning to listen to Ron Paul! There is, however, a great Repub hope waiting patiently out there in the wings: Fred Thompson. I don't know much about him, other than he is a good actor, so I was interested in this analysis by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal [for technical reasons I don't understand I cannot link- sorry]. She thinks he is running a great uncampaign. All he needs to do is wait for the current candidates to disgrace themselves a bit more, to become a bit staler, a bit more unwelcome, and then pounce.

Or something like that.

Here's a taste of what she sees in him:

Why would he run now? Because he thinks there's noone of greater stature on the field. Because he thinks he's got a better, shrewder read of the base than the rest of them. Because he's at an age where you throw the dice or know you never will. Because he thinks the one essential to modern presidential leadership, the one thing you must have now, in the age of terror, is the ability to communicate, and he reads himself as the best communicator. And because he's at a point in his private life where it's possible for him. He's got a wife who's got his back and two kids who've given him a second chance. Even in great careers it's the private life that's hardest to get right. He feels he has.

People speak of Mr. Thompson's movie-star looks. But he's not beautiful, he's heavy and gray. What he has is bearing. He has the manner of someone who thinks a great deal of himself, and thinks it after long personal pondering of his good points, bad points, high points and low. He may or may not be correct in his conclusions, but I suspect they are part of his draw. I suspect people pick them up.

Another actor in the White House might be interesting.