Fred Tompson's Career Move: Invade Iran?

To follow the fortunes of the Republican party requires close reading of both the political press and the TV trade journals: Will Thompson Jump Into the Race? Has Law & Order Jumped the Shark?

TV’s longest-running drama is “on the bubble” between renewal and cancellation, so even if Thompson is going to run, in fairness to “Law & Order,” he can’t announce until the May rating sweeps are over or equal-time rules will kick his show off the air.

Running second in the polls, Thompson has undoubtedly decided to audition for the ’08 reality-show version of “The West Wing,” and his party’s Pooh-Bahs have been busy appraising his credentials as a true-blue conservative.

The verdict so far seems favorable. In a cover story, their house organ the Weekly Standard has deemed him “the politically aggressive conservative that George W. Bush hasn't been for four years.”

The rest of us might have some cause to worry. Not only is Thompson gung-ho on Iraq, he wants to invade Iran as well.

According to the Standard, “Thompson says that the actions of the Iranian regime...are acts of war. He stops short of calling for a military response, but seems to suggest that he would be saying something different if circumstances were different...’I think the bottom line with Iran is that nothing is going to change unless there is a regime change.’"

If Thompson gets to the White House, we may have re-runs of more than “Law & Order.”