I'm rehearsing my lines, doing some improv exercises to prep me for my Leno interview, practicing my blocking. My big official debut is going to make the ladies cream and the gentlemen turn green with envy.
The movie star is about to be in the race, folks. My star wattage is going to brighten up what has been a depressing GOP field to date.
I've been doing the campaign blah blah blah thing in Iowa. Yeah, that's me, holding pigs, pretending to be amazed at their stupid cow carved out of butter, trying to say, "No, thank you so much," every time someone tries to foist their fried crap.
Iowa is a taste of hell. Why is this the first place to go in the race for the nomination? Couldn't it be somewhere more fun, like Hawaii?
And the press was all over my ass while I pretended to be one of the real people over there:
Unlike Democrat Barack Obama, who a day earlier sought out state fairgoers, fried food and rides, Thompson raced through the jam-packed fair, stopping only to shake hands and chat with people who approached him. . . .Christ, it gets harder and harder to keep up that man of the people act when you have to actually go out there and meet the people for real. It's so much easier to act the part on the small screen.
"Fred Thompson! Fred Thompson!" yelled a group of middle-aged fairgoers.
The TV star kept walking, until Grassley gently steered Thompson toward the group.
"Somebody likes you that much, we better go talk to them," Grassley told Thompson.
Hunh. So I'm doing better with men than I am with women. I guess it makes sense: I'm tall, my wife is a lot younger and one fine piece of tail, and I play tough leaders on TV and in the movies. We thought my appeal would be that women want me; turns out, it's that men want to be me.
Sure, I'll take that.
And maybe if we shift those Hillary-is-a-lezbo rumors into overdrive, we'll decimate her support among women. Someone call up Ann Coulter: she'll say anything if it gets her on TV.
Clearly the press parasites aren't going to stop sucking blood until I get out there and defend my wife. They love theatre like that.
Well, so I've decided to take that role. I'm debuting on a friendly stage, The National Review, and I'm saying she's not really a Hillary, she's just doing things I've asked her to do. That way, she looks more like a traditional conservative wifey.
This whole thing will turn back my way. Everything does eventually.
OK, so elevating Sam to have his character be my character's replacement as DA -- that's a really nice gesture to Sam, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the plot. (I mean, his character Jack has been anything but a political operator. But we'll see how that works out.)
But to fill the void left by yours truly, they bring in Linus Roache? Really? Didn't he play a gay priest in that movie?
Are they serious?
I need to have my people be sure to spin this -- that Sam is elevated to become my replacement, and the gay priest is Sam's replacement. I don't need my supporters thinking of men kissing me when they think of me and Law & Order.
But I'm going to let them shoot themselves in the foot without giving them my advice. NBC is cutting into my residuals. I hope they suffer for it.
I really should be invited out there to discuss the press brouhaha and goings on about Michael Moore. I have that great video with me chomping the cigar and turning around in the chair -- it's funny, it's authoritative, it's powerful, it's better than Reagan, folks.
Well, I can't resist a second look:
Oh, yeah, that's good stuff. It took three takes, but that's only because I kept laughing each time I tried to say "while you were down in Cuba visting your buddy Castro." I know, Michael Moore is an extreme liberal, but come on -- even that was just a little on the ridiculous side. (I might as well have said, "And when did you join the Communist Party?") But none of our people are ever going to actually see the Moore film, so as far as anyone knows he could have been sharing tea and crumpets with Fidel himself.
I have some friends who are struggling to snap up a bargain home in the Washington area. They've been trying and trying to find a home in foreclosure that they can buy for less than it's worth in order to use the extra funds to build a squash court, but the market just hasn't ripened for them yet. I keep telling them they'll either have to wait for the market to mature or cash in a stock option, but they're reluctant to do that.
I'm glad I know them, though, so that when I leave my mansion in McLean and go out there to talk with the great unwashed on the campaign trail, I'll have some idea of what it's like for folks who are struggling in this economy.
It's like they tell you when you start acting -- use what you know.
Hollywood is just getting too small for a big man. Their idea of a star is some kid who needs a haircut and is supposed to be a Macintosh computer -- even though he doesn't act like a computer, he acts like a smug kid who needs a haircut.
Some of the whiny folks out there think that somehow all my episodes of Law & Order should be pulled or edited or that my scenes should be excised from the webcasts.
That's war, people. Do not cut into my residuals. That mansion in MacLean doesn't pay for itself.
So someone out there said, "There is an air of anticipation that GOP presidential contender-in-waiting Fred Thompson will have something substantive to say tonight about his still-to-be-announced run for the White House when he appears on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
Now, I understand this was written on a website connected to NBC, which makes sense -- they want to promote their show. Otherwise, I don't know what gave them the idea I was planning on saying anything substantive at all.
I mean, I'm sure I'll have lots of things to say. I just don't like to say any substantive things unless I've rehearsed them twice and trust the director.
