Over on Talkingpointsmemo.com, Josh noted that the administration is being pushed to hire former Congressman Fred Thompson, whose gravitas and experience could stabilize a White House that’s begun to list sharply.
Thompson’s gravitas and experience are already in use, however — on the hit television series Law and Order, where he plays District Attorney Arthur Branch. And as was noted previously, one of the Law and Order shows (Criminal Intent) is going to be investigating the brutal murder of a Secret Service agent, which spreads into an investigation of the Abramoff affair, although it’s TV so they don’t call it the Abramoff affair.
Conflict of interest? Thompson doesn’t actually act on Criminal Intent, so any information discovered in the course of shooting the show (photos of TV-Abramoff and TV-Bush?) probably aren’t relevant. And he would not have to TV-recuse himself from any TV-prosecution that might touch the TV-White House.
But he’s got one possible disqualifier: Having become accustomed to Law and Order’s “ripped from the headlines” scripts, Thompson is probably used to working with material that’s more closely based on reality than the stuff the White House reads off of, most days. Could he make the transition?
