Presidential scouting reports: a libertarian fan's guide to the World Series of politics

Reason, June, 2007 by David Weigel, Jesse Walker, Nick Gillespie

Bottom Line: Ron Paul aside, Hagel's stances make him the strongest candidate some libertarians could dream of--especially those whose chief concern is ending the war. But his only constituency might be the media.

Fred Thompson (Undeclared)

Vitals: Thompson's C.V. reads like the resumes of two or three different people mashed together in a filing accident. He became an assistant U.S. attorney only two years out of law school, then came under the wing of Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), who put him on the Senate Watergate Committee. Back in the Volunteer State, he won a parole board case that exposed the state's governor for selling pardons. The story was adapted into the film Marie, faintly remembered now for its role in the decline of Sissy Spacek's star power and for the acting debut of Thompson, who played himself. He acted for nearly 10 years before winning Al Gore's old Senate seat in 1994, retiring in 2002 and taking a central role on NBC's popular Law and Order.

Pros: Watergate-era Thompson was a dogged investigator of a corrupt White House. Sen. Thompson was a term limits true believer who voted for tax cuts and passed a bill reforming Congress's labor laws, making legislators follow the same rules private companies have to obey.

Cons: If you go by his second-most-prominent media appearances these days--filling in for Paul Harvey's folksy radio commentary--Thompson's worldview is a combination of tough-guy thuggishness and "bomb the bastards" foreign policy. He has taken Gandhi to the woodshed and is a big fan of that musty applause line, "It is the soldier, not the journalist, who has given us freedom of speech." He has praised President Bush for refusing to negotiate with Iran and Syria and, instead, "taking them on." In office he voted for all of John McCain's campaign finance proposals. He also proudly raised money for the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust, surely the most ironic career move for a Law and Order prosecutor.

Bottom Line: If he runs,Thompson will be the most pro-Bush Republican in the race; he narrated Bush's bio films at the 2004 Republican convention. If you liked the Bush era but wished the president's voice had a little more bass, Thompson's the one.