I like Fred

Most of you know Fred Thompson as a actor who currently plays New York District Attorney Arthur Branch on the television series "Law and Order".

But besides being an accomplished actor (The Hunt For Red October, Thunderheart, Line of Fire & several others) former US Senator Fred Thompson is also an attorney, former shoe salesman, truck driver, and factory worker.

Senator Thompson attended Memphis State University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and political science. He went on to receive a law degree from Vanderbilt University.

Two years later, Thompson was named an Assistant United States Attorney and later served as Minority Counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee.

The Senator distinguished himself  from the beginning of his campaign in 1994 when he said: "To get elected today, politicians will say just about anything. Then they get to Washington and we find out what they really think. I'm Fred Thompson, and I'm going to tell you what I believe right now."

And he then went on to define his core principles of a fundamental faith in a great America and a great American people, of restraining a bloated federal government though fiscal responsibility, of reforming the professional special-interest culture of Washington and of expanding the economy through meaningful tax reform.

How refreshing, a politician that actually tells you in unequivocal terms what he believes and what he's going to do, and then actually follows through and does it after he gets elected.

That campaign was Senator Thompson's introduction to Tennessee and the United States as a statesman who said what he felt and meant what he said.

Now the Senator is very likely going to make a run for the Presidency of the United States in 2008. I hope he does, gets the nomination, and I get the honor and privilege of voting for him once again.

Here's a final Fred Thompson quote from 1999 when someone asked him to offer his advice on leadership: "At one time or another, all of us will find ourselves in the right place at the right time to assume leadership. Our job as individuals is to always be ready, for when that moment comes we must follow our conscience and do what is right."

"Our job as individuals is to always be ready............"

I believe the time is right, the place is right, and the Senator is the right man for this job.