AMERICA: THE MOVIE

I've never seen The Hunt for Red October -- is that the performance that's driving the Fred Thompson surge in the GOP polls (not merely to #3 in the Gallup Poll but to #1 in a GOP straw poll in Gwinnett County, Georgia, on Saturday -- yup, he beat not only Giuliani and McCain but favorite son Gingrich)?

I really think it might be -- here's a Fred fan's proposed bumper sticker, based on a line Thompson delivered in that movie:


Good grief -- the world is more dangerous for Americans than it's ever been in my adult life, and Republicans want our next president to be a fictional character?

(And a fictional character who fictionally fought the fictional version of the last enemy. Duh, we don't care -- fightin' commies was fun!)

Thompson, by the way, is also at 58% as I type this in an online poll conducted by the Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail. (Giuliani and McCain did finish 1-2 in a GOP straw poll in Summit County, Ohio, on Saturday, but Thompson was #3 and in double digits.)

I think the problem for Republicans is that it really seemed as if the Cold War ended like a Hollywood movie, with total victory for The Good Guys and total defeat for The Bad Guys -- and a movie actor seemed to have won the Cold War all by himself. Republicans love that story, and they think everything in life should be that simple -- they don't understand why we can't just crank up the John Williams music and the CGI and kick Iraq's ass and Iran's ass and the asses of those al-What'stheirnames guys who fled Tora Bora a few years ago. They thought Reagan was a military hero because he loved to salute; and Bush, well, you know. They're going to give us another artificial hero as president if we don't stop them.

****

UPDATE: I think the illustration should be working now.

****

UPDATE: Thompson gets nearly half the vote in this multi-candidate online poll at Free Republic. (Duncan Hunter's #2, then Giuliani, then Gingrich. McCain is dead last.)