Fred's Lazy?

Fred's bored

And then there is Fred Thompson, who saw it as a waste of his time. Back in 1998, only four years after being elected, he was out of patience. "I don't like spending 14- and 16-hour days voting on 'sense of the Senate' resolutions on irrelevant matters," he snorted. "There are some important things we really need to get on with — and on a daily basis, it's very frustrating."

When his seat came up in 2002, the Tennessee Republican chose not to run again, which he now takes as a badge of honor. Asked recently by National Review to name his most important accomplishments in office, he replied, "You mean, besides leaving the Senate?"

Since he began toying with a presidential race, he has been accused of laziness. But no one who has made a living as a trial lawyer, as Thompson has, can be suspected of congenital sloth. In any event, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have proven that the presidency does not require a grueling work schedule.

The real question is whether Thompson really wants the office and all that comes with it for four long years. The Oval Office has its own quota of dull obligations — attending state dinners, signing off on budgets, traveling to countries no tourist would ever choose, trying to remember the housing secretary's name — which could be excruciating to someone with Thompson's low tolerance for tedium.

Americans, meanwhile, should wonder about entrusting the job to someone who has proven unable to sustain interest in the responsibilities that come with high federal office. In weighing his candidacy, they may find that the more they see of him, the less interested they are.

"I don't know why all of the pundits say Fred isn't doing well. He's in the top 3 everywhere I look," a local republican noted. "The majority of the people I talk to support Fred Thompson," he said.

Unity, Prosperity, Security....UPS, no wait, that's taken by the big brown trucks. How about Prosperity, Unity, Security.