Fred Thompson is the Heir Apparent to W

Fred Thompson seems to be the heir apparent to W. Why? Because Freddy has been light on the details and heavy on talking to the 'folks' its tough to know if he matches W in the policy realm, but phonetically he appears to be a perfect match. Here is an excerpt from his Meet the Press interview yesterday regarding a drug dealer friend of his (Los Angeles Times here),

"I'm not going to throw my friend under the bus for something he did, you know, 25 years ago if he's OK now," Thompson said. "On the other hand, I'm running for president. I've got, you know, to do the right thing, you know, and problems occur, and I'll just have to figure it out."

He manages to say 'you know' 3 times in 3 sentences. One word comes to mind: amateur. When a speaker feels nervous they tend to fill in the gaps with 'um' and 'you know' etc. A good speaker, when hit with a tough question as Thompson was, will pause. It is amazingly difficult to pause and collect your thoughts when eyes (and in this case cameras) are glaring, but is essential in public speaking. While it is true that he was hit with a very difficult question that he did not expect, it is also true that he normally speaks poorly. It is why he seems uninterested and bored.

At least George W. was animated when he would jump off the grammatical cliff. Maybe Thompson should take a page from W's book.