"when longtime lobbyist and Hollywood actor Fred Thompson -- a man who once rented a red pickup truck in order to campaign in Tennessee as a man of the people -- indicated this week that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination, we knew how the media would describe him: Authentic. Folksy.
Let's back up a moment: Thompson didn't even drive the rented pickup, as The Washington Monthly reported in 1996:
Finishing his talk, Thompson shakes a few hands, then walks out with the rest of the crowd to the red pickup truck he made famous during his 1994 Senate campaign. My friend stands talking with her colleagues as the senator is driven away by a blond, all-American staffer. A few minutes later, my friend gets into her car to head home. As she pulls up to the stop sign at the parking lot exit, rolling up to the intersection is Senator Thompson, now behind the wheel of a sweet silver luxury sedan. He gives my friend a slight nod as he drives past. Turning onto the main road, my friend passes the school's small, side parking area. Lo and behold: There sits the abandoned red pickup, along with the all-American staffer.
The pickup was, literally, a rented prop designed to help a wealthy actor/Washington lobbyist/trial lawyer play the role of salt-of-the-earth populist.
But Chris Matthews and the Beltway pundit crowd don't encounter many actual working-class voters as they stroll the dunes of Nantucket. A wealthy lobbyist/actor who rents a red pickup truck to play the role of a regular guy strikes them as "authentic" and "folksy." Mark Halperin wrote this week that Thompson won his first Senate race "after driving his trademark red pickup truck all over Tennessee."
It wasn't "his" and he didn't "drive" it, of course, but the illusion of authenticity is all that matters to the pundit class. Thus a wealthy lobbyist in a rented pickup is folksy and authentic. (A Nexis search for "Fred Thompson and (Thompson w/20 folksy)" returns 40 hits since January 1. Several mention the red pickup; only Wonkette bothered to mention it was rented. The Washington Post assured readers that "[t]he signature red pickup truck from Thompson's Senate campaigns will be dusted off.")
On Hardball last night, Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan swooned over Thompson:
MATTHEWS: I like the fact of how he responded the other day to Michael Moore. He's got a cigar. Of course, he can't light cigars in his home. Nobody can with their wives around. But he sat there with the cigar. But it was refreshing to me to see a politician with a cigar.
[...]
BUCHANAN: Well, you're right. There's this great naturalness to this fellow, and he was not -- he's not programmed in any way and he's fresh as he can be. I think he moves right into the front tier.
[...]
MATTHEWS: I can tell you, as a reporter, covering him back when he ran against Jim Cooper in that uphill race in Tennessee -- I called him up. I said -- I was doing like a column then -- and I said, "Can I see you?" He didn't have a title then. "Can I see you, Fred?" He says, "Yeah." He said, "Where do you want to meet for breakfast?" He says, "Where are you staying?" I said, "At this hotel." I was staying at, like, a three-star hotel. He says, "OK, I'll meet you there for breakfast." No flacks, no staff, no pomposity. He shows up. ... He seems like the real thing to me.
Matthews previously gushed over Thompson's "movie star" looks and "daddy" image.
Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald details more media fawning over Fred Thompson:
[T]he illusion of manliness cliches, tough guy poses, and empty gestures of "cultural conservatism" are what the Republican base seeks, and media simpletons like [Newsweek's Howard] Fineman, Halperin and Matthews eat it all up just as hungrily. That's how twice-and-thrice-divorced and draft-avoiding individuals like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh become media symbols of the Christian "values voters" and "tough guy," "tough-on-defense" stalwarts.
And it's how a life-long Beltway lobbyist and lawyer who avoided Vietnam, standing next to his twenty-five-years-younger second wife, is held up by our media stars as a Regular-Guy-Baptist symbol of piety and a no-nonsense, tough-guy, super-masculine warrior who will protect us all."
It is time to tell the truth and share it with each other. I will not be "fooled again".
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