By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007; 9:38 AM

Look at the way Brit Hume led off the Fox debate last night: Enough about you, what do you think of Fred Thompson getting into the race?

The actor blew off the New Hampshire gathering to announce his intentions to Jay Leno, drawing a bigger audience without those pesky GOP rivals nipping at his heels.

Thompson was casual and folksy as he made the declaration, but seemed to me a bit rambling and low-key for a man accustomed to memorizing his lines. He made a couple of mild jokes, but mostly kind of ambled his way into the race. One thing I found off-putting: He barely glanced at Leno, playing instead to the camera, but didn't look directly into the camera either, instead sort of gazing into space.

It was, to be candid, a flat performance--though he didn't look like the striving candidates who, as he put it, have been planning their presidential bids since high school.

On issues, Thompson said we should stay in Iraq "until we get the job done"; warned of the dangers of al-Qaeda, Iran and Hezbollah, and said he wouldn't apologize for the USA. He offered no specifics or even a memorable one-liner.

"After months of false starts, staff shake-ups, and questions about the seriousness of his intention to run for president," says the New York Times, "Fred D. Thompson rolled out his candidacy last night with a two-pronged entry into the race that sought to take the spotlight from his Republican opponents as they squared off in a debate.

"Choosing 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno' to declare 'I'm running for president of the United States,' Mr. Thompson said, 'I don't think people are going to say, "That guy would make a very good president, but he just didn't get in soon enough." ' . . .

"Mr. Thompson provided himself a pleasant, risk-free forum, safe from potential negativity and tough questioning from reporters, a debate moderator or the public."

San Francisco Chronicle: "As he sat in the NBC Burbank studios, the former Tennessee senator rolled out his new script: morphing from District Attorney Arthur Branch of 'Law & Order' into a real presidential candidate, with some folksy and feisty talk that kicked off a blitz of activity announcing his entry into the race . . .

"Leno introduced him as 'one of the most popular Republicans not running for president' and then asked, 'You've been in the water for awhile now . . . Are you starting to get a little wrinkly?'

" 'These wrinkles don't come from the water,' the 65-year-old Thompson mugged."

As for the debate, Fox's innovation was not YouTube but ChowDown: Carl Cameron in a New Hampshire diner, letting a couple of residents sound off and asking the candidates to respond. All the candidates talked tough on immigration and terror, and all but Ron Paul pronounced the Iraq surge a success. Most interesting moment: Mike Huckabee and Paul going at it over Iraq. Why don't more debate moderators let the candidates argue?

The Frank Luntz focus group, by the way, loved John McCain, the candidate the media have written off. And they couldn't stand Rudy Giuliani, who one woman said talked too much about New York.

"Major Republican presidential candidates rallied behind President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq during a campaign debate Wednesday night that included new sparring over their records on controlling illegal immigration," says the Chicago Tribune.

"The newest entrant into the party's presidential contest, actor-politician Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, skipped the debate, avoiding direct engagement with the other candidates but drawing needling from several of his rivals. 'Maybe we're up past his bedtime,' said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). 'I think he's done a pretty good job of playing my part on 'Law and Order.' I personally prefer the real thing,' said former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney for the city, referring to Thompson's television role as a New York City district attorney."

Meanwhile, it's pretty clear that Larry Craig (who no one defended at the debate) isn't following the Washington Scandal Script.

You get caught doing something bad, you apologize, you resign, and then you write a tell-all book, go on Oprah and make a second career rehashing the terrible thing you did and how mean everyone was to you. (Jim "Gay American" McGreevey and ex-wife Dina have both worked this circuit.)

Instead, Craig wants a do-over.

He wants to fight his own guilty plea and, possibly, wants to retract his own resignation. He says, in a voice-mail message obtained by Roll Call, that he's been "railroaded."

This is not how the scenario is supposed to play out. We all wrote our what-does-it-all-mean pieces last week.

Does the senator realize the second wave of coverage that would wash over him--with fresh deconstructions of bathroom-stall behavior--if he tries again to fight for his seat? And that he seems to have few allies, either in the GOP or the conservative punditocracy?

"On the criminal law front," says Josh Marshall, "what is there to fight about? Craig is like a senatorial Wile E. Coyote. He's fifteen feet out past the edge of the cliff on the criminal procedure front. The only reason he hasn't fallen yet is that he hasn't looked down.

"I've now spoken to a couple DC defense attorney friends who both say that a good defense attorney could have gotten the whole thing thrown out just on the basis of the interrogation. But as far I know, a guilty plea is virtually impossible to take back. Not impossible -- there's always an exception. But my sense is that to even have a shot at it you need some massive procedural flaw in what happened. Changing your mind or not being gay doesn't count."

At Americablog, Pam Spaulding wonders about the difference between David Vitter (of D.C. Madam fame) and Larry Craig:

"The GOP is now forced to make a choice -- defend its witch hunt as conditional upon whether someone is convicted of (or pleads guilty to) a tawdry misdemeanor, or affirm that same-sex behavior -- illicit or not -- is fine as long as you don't get caught. I wouldn't want to be in that slippery position with Daddy Dobson's crowd . . . The political undercurrent here is that Mitch McConnell's threat to Craig -- an investigation that ensured additional public exposure and humiliation that forced the initial quasi-resignation -- is actually a signal to the rest of the conservative closet cases in the GOP's midst -- don't get caught in a sex-sting or we'll dump you, no matter that you loyally voted against LGBT issues. You -- and your closet -- are expendable.

"I wouldn't want to be a Log Cabinette having to shill for these folks. The knickers are now definitely in a twist as they have to deal with a defiant Craig. Has he decided to kick open a few closet doors of his friends on the Hill now that they've publicly stabbed him in the back? Let's see how many former 'outraged' GOP pols start treading lightly or fall silent."

Steven Taylor at PoliBlog questions Craig's grip on reality:

"It would seem that Craig lives in an odd world where one takes responsibility for an action (like pleading guilty for an offense or resigning) and then one turns around and rescinds the action. This is rather odd. Had he wanted to fight for his job (or his innocence) there were appropriate junctures at which to do so. To play this game is plain strange, not to mention not politically viable.

"If Craig indeed has been planning to un-resign, it simply demonstrates that the man truly does live in a self-delusional world (which was already pretty clear to begin with)."

Dick Polman invokes "SNL":

"This is probably Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell's worst nightmare, made worse because it's happening during waking hours. The last thing he wants, at this point, is to burdened any further by a 'family values' colleague who is now known, nationwide, for his practice of sliding his fingers along the underside of a neighbor's toilet stall. Thirty years ago on Saturday Night Live, John Belushi played a character called 'The Thing That Wouldn't Leave,' an unwelcome houseguest who refused to hit the road despite his host's persistent entreaties. Craig apparently wants to do the sequel."

The right can't muster much enthusiasm for Craig (who, I should note, is up for reelection next year). At Power Line, John Hinderaker says Craig copped a plea for a reason:

"I think it's true that Craig probably would not have been convicted if he had chosen to go to trial. His reputation, however, would have been ruined by the circumstances of his arrest. So Craig made a rational decision to forgo trial and plead guilty to disorderly conduct, in hopes that his misdemeanor conviction wouldn't come to light. After all, the arresting officer promised Craig that he wouldn't call the press.

"However, now that the cat is out of the bag, the calculation has changed. Now, Craig has little to lose by trying to re-open the case, seek dismissal of the charges or an acquittal at trial, and claim the result as vindication. It is, so to speak, a second bite at the apple.

"I don't blame Craig for pursuing this strategy, although it's hard to understand the basis on which he could now change his mind about his guilty plea . . . There is nothing noble or heroic about Craig's change of heart. His decision to resign was the right one, and he should resist the temptation to try to prolong the inevitable. Idaho's voters will not be as anxious to keep Craig in office as fellow senators like Arlen Specter."

Captain Ed has the day's best headline, "Craig Still Playing Footsie":

"I have argued both that Craig's actions in the bathroom didn't arise to anything more criminal than flirting and that Republicans seemed to be applying a double standard in their push for Craig's resignation. In my opinion, Craig should have fought both much harder. However, he didn't in either case, and now he's just becoming absurd."

Will no one out there say a kind word for the Idahoan? Okay, here's Quin Hillyer at OpinionJournal:

"I have hesitated to write this, but common decency finally compels me to speak up here: Sen. Larry Craig deserves some sympathy, and some perspective.

"First, some disclaimers: Obviously, it appears as if the rumors of his history (of doing the sort of thing that he is suspected of doing) are probably true. And if he has been doing any sexual acts in a public rest room, that's bad, very bad. As it is to have cheated on his wife. And if he was actually trying to solicit such activity, as accused, it's pretty gross, too . . .None of what I am about to write is meant to excuse his apparent intent, and what is likely his history of the same.

"But really, what this means is that this man needs help. Even knowing that he was under serious scrutiny for such alleged behavior, for him to do it (again) anyway shows a terrible, and bizarre, compulsion. It shows a bad psychological problem, and possibly a psychiatric one. Somebody who would risk his career for such activities is crying out for help.

"All that said, let's not forget this: This was a man who, in public life, did a superb job serving his constituents for more than a quarter century."

This reminds me of how the WSJ was sooo sympathetic about Bill Clinton's personal problems and took pains to separate them from his public work.

As the pre-Petraeus war debate drags on, Rich Lowry opens fire on some members of his own side:

"There is an easy way for a Republican senator to burst from semi-obscurity to the front pages -- offer a compromise plan on Iraq.

"Sens. John Warner (Virginia), Dick Lugar (Indiana), and Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) have all done it. Warner even double-dipped. He had dissented from President Bush's Iraq policy in July by sponsoring a compromise plan with Lugar, and then garnered headlines in August for a much-hyped break with Bush that was only a continuation of his previous break. How many times can a senator break with the president until he just stays broken?

"No contribution to the Iraq debate is as analytically pathetic as that of these halfway Republicans. Their reflex toward compromise -- honed in their collective 12 terms in the senate -- leads them to believe that any problem can be negotiated away, so long as enough members of the world's oldest deliberative body get together to deliberate earnestly (and a little pompously) . . .

"All the compromises propose that we stop policing a sectarian civil war and focus on counter-terrorism, training the Iraqis and increasing diplomacy. This means ending our combat role (i.e., 're-deploying'), but still supposedly achieving everything deemed desirable by the halfway senators (the defeat of al-Qaeda, the establishment of effective Iraqi security forces and regional stability). Would that the world were so susceptible to magical thinking."

Cindy Sheehan, you may recall, is running against Nancy Pelosi. The Nation's Katha Pollitt has criticized her bid--and felt the Peace Mom's sting:

"Her outraged and self-righteous response to my mild and polite posts make me wonder how she will withstand the rigors of political campaigning. Because I express doubt that she will make much impression on the ballot box, and think that likelihood and its implications are worth discussing frankly, Sheehan accuses me of 'stridently' (nice --does anyone ever use that word for a man?) defending the Democratic Party's 'complicity' in the war and of not caring about the sufferings of Iraqis the way she does.

"I'm sorry, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Even if I was the reprehensible character she claims -- yellowdog Dem indifferent to the horrors of war, willing to say anything to keep Nancy Pelosi in power -- I could still be right about Sheehan's own electoral prospects and about whether such runs are the best use of the antiwar/progressive movements energies. Shouldn't a serious candidate be trying to show the hundreds of thousands of people who visit this website that I am wrong? Sheehan doesn't address any of the points I raise . . . All she does is malign my motives and my personality, attack The Nation for supposedly exploiting her fame, and accuse anyone who questions her judgment of supporting the war."

And in the duh department, as noted by the New Republic, this CNN.com headline:

"Men want hot women, study confirms"

Ya think?