FREDERICK OF HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLES BACK DOWN THE ROAD... TO NOWHERE

Rich Lowry: "I'm still mystified at why he got into the race in the first place."

Well... somewhere. He's just in time for the impending settlement of the Writers Guild strike. He didn't have many endorsements, just from a handful of Tennessee colleagues-- like Lamar Alexander who could only muster "He has a presidential bearing" to explain the rise and fall of Ole Fred-- and a couple of nut cases like DeMint (R-SC) who hates all the other pathetic pygmies so much that he dreamt of Ole Fred rescuing the Party of Hatred and Bigotry from their half-hearted hatred and half-hearted bigotry of the rest of them. Not even waiting for the official word, influenceless defeated pol/crime boss Alfonse D'Amato already told the NY Post he'll be throwing his (very light) weight behind McCain-- anything to stop the despises Giuliani.

Sir Frederick decided he had enough ammo to convince his wife to let him drop out after he did miserably in South Carolina, which came after he did miserably in Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, and Nevada, confounding clueless Beltway pundits who had predicted he would be knight-on-white-horse and the consensus candidate, replacing None of the Above on the tongues of a majority of Republican voters. By the end he was just protecting his pal McCain's right flank from the feared and hated Huckabee, the two of them both appealing to the same Know Nothing wing of the Republican Party's most backward constituencies. In South Carolina, his third place showing kept The Huckster from routing McCain, giving McCain the momentum he needed to make like a frontrunner in impressionable Florida-- and, in effect, derailing Huckabee's nickel and dime campaign. His advisers claim he won't be endorsing anyone.

Before his wife allowed him to end the humiliation of his absurd campaign-- his 1% draw in New Hampshire was smaller than write-ins people cast for their father-in-laws and as jokes-- he had cast himself in the role of "a country boy who would bring truth to Washington (in fact, he resides across the Potomac River from the capital, in McLean, Va). And in South Carolina, he talked more and more of his Christian faith, attacking gay marriage and abortion. But there, too, he found himself boxed in, as Mr. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, had laid a deeper claim to [bigoted and hate-driven] evangelical Christian voters."

One of Thompson's advisers-- great job, Galen; why would anyone hire you for anything ever again?-- is threatening we may not have heard the last of Ole Fred, claiming he "could end up as vice president because he could mitigate the conservative shortcomings of potential nominees such as Rudy Giuliani. 'Having somebody like Thompson on the ticket, it seems to me, could go a long way toward unifying and energizing the base. I don't even know if he'd take it, although I'm not sure I've ever heard of anybody turning it down. He has said flat out he's not interested in becoming vice president, but that's what they all say.'" Maybe he should ask Jeri. Besides, according to Fox News, he was out-and-out lying his Republican ass off.

This one's for Ole Fred and his little Jeri-- and for all the DWT readers who love a good tune: