Opinion: Fred Thompson couldn’t be president, so maybe he’ll play one--again

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Fred Thompson, the tall, wise-looking, deep-voiced former actor and senator who was the surefire next President Ronald Reagan until he actually announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, is returning to show business.

Actually, he never left. He’s leaving the low-paying political part of show business and reentering the high-paid end, the one on a screen of some sort.

The high-powered William Morris Agency has announced it has signed to represent the man with so many formers in front of his name -- former prosecutor, former senator, former prosecutor-senator playing a prosecutor and also playing a president and an aircraft carrier commander and anything else that seems to need a wise, weathered commander. Except the real White House.

Thompson’s political show flopped, showing a lingering hesitancy to launch, early organizational problems, lingering organizational problems, an apparent dislike for campaign workdays that went much past 10:45 or 11 a.m. and an occasional disconnect like the time he worked the Iowa State Fair riding in a golf cart and wearing fancy leather loafers.

Doggone it, folks really seemed to like him, and he had pretty good conservative credentials. They just didn’t vote for him. Even libertarian-like Republican Ron Paul beat him at fundraising and at some polls. And after South Carolina, Thompson’s political road show was canceled, unlike ‘Law & Order.’

--Andrew Malcolm