DWT quiz answer: Who's the driving force behind Fred Thompson's march to the White House?

Today's DWT quiz asked you to identify the author of an e-exhortation promoting Law & Order cast member (and former actual prosecutor and U.S. senator from Tennessee) Fred Thompson for the Republican presidential nomination. It began:

Momentum continues to build behind those of us who are encouraging Fred Thompson to run for the White House.

I’ve talked to Fred on a regular basis over the last two weeks and can tell you that he is strongly considering running for president.

Likely caucus voters ranked Fred among the top three Republicans in a recent Iowa poll, and those results reflect a growing trend.

(As an alert commenter pointed out, we can guess with a high degree of certainty that Fred didn't rank No. 1 or 2 in that poll.)

We offered the following choices:

(a) Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut,
(b) the Rev. Pat Robertson
(c) House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio
(d) California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
(e) former Vice President Dan Quayle
(f) former Senate Majority Leader Doctorbill Frist
(g) Sen. Jim "How Do I Know, the Bible Tells Me So" Inhofe of Oklahoma

Probably the meanest curve we threw was the Lieberman quote: "Fred is a close personal friend, and just one of a number of fine Republican candidates I would be proud to support." Heck, this sounds so much like Holy Joe that, if we hadn't made it up ourselves, we would have sworn it was authentic.

Here's where you really have to "Know Your Phonies" [pat. pending]:

Would we be surprised to see His Holiness supporting a Republican for president? Not in the least. We kind of take it for granted, actually. But our mystery writer wrote: "Fred’s true conservative values and his ability to clearly communicate Republican principles (not just rhetoric) have allowed him to gain this incredible support without spending any money and without any campaigning--a remarkable statement."

Now in different times and places Holy Joe has pretended to be a lot of things: progressive, sometimes even liberal, honest (what a kidder!). Perhaps most comically, he pretended--in his shamelessly dishonest, back-to-the-wall 2006 desperation drive for reelection--to be against the Iraq war. But he hasn't yet taken to pretending to be conservative, even if most of the people he usually votes with now unapologetically are. Also, we did describe our guy as a "prominent Republican." This still isn't the case with His Holiness, at least officially--at least as far as we know.

(Side note: Since one of Holy Joe's favorite propaganda techniques against anyone who dares to question his record as a corporate whore and defender of right-wing causes is to brand them as anti-Semites, we might point out that the actor Steven Hill, with whom we had some fun in our introductory remarks, but for whom we like to think our unmitigated admiration was made abundantly clear, is also--we seem to recall--a highly observant Orthodox Jew. However, he keeps those views a private matter between him and his deity, or deities, as the case may be. It is, after all, none of our goddamn beeswax.)

Okay, okay, the quiz. It seems to be just a matter of the Tennessee connection. Fred Thompson's No. 1 presidential booster is none other than . . . [drum roll] . . . former Sen. Doctorbill "If I Quack Like a Duck, I'm Probably a Quack" Frist.


With that kind of political muscle behind him, Thompson is undoubtedly . . . er, hoping that Law & Order honcho Dick Wolf can squeeze another season out of NBC.