[nathanbedford]

This is the second article appearing on Free Republic in nearly as many minutes damning Fred Thompson as nothing more than an amiable but empty flannel shirt.

For the record I do not agree with this and I support Fred Thompson. However, we have all seen how the drive-by media fashions its template and, after a news cycle, that template becomes the received wisdom for the ages. Fred Thompson must act proactively to take the agenda away from the media and drive them with it. Otherwise he is doomed to be buffeted by them into mediocrity, to a point where he becomes beatable by Hillary which, after all, is the media's objective.

These two articles, the previous one by Andrew Sullivan, reveal how the media will go about this. More importantly, Republicans are operating at such disadvantage this cycle that we are in my view destined to lose this election unless we change the rules of the game and dominate the issues. We must take the agenda away from the media.

Amiability alone is insufficient. Ronald Reagan was a man of legendary likability but he had a full arsenal of issues at his command.

[lesser_satan]

The thing to consider is how likable these flaming libs found him, even when they know nothing of his intellectual pedigree. I read the Sullivan article you speak of earlier, and it seemed to me like Sullivan didn’t know quite what to make of Fred, like he wanted to like him but couldn’t because Fred’s not a lib.