For those not already weary of Fred Thompson's now-active candidacy, his big new campaign video is up here. As in the brief teaser that Mike blogged about yesterday, Fred is standing, a bit stiffly, in an office somewhere. (Can't they seat him behind a desk?) He speaks a little too quickly, and his emphasis rarely varies much. He also has an odd tendency to punctuate sentences with jerks of his head--something he doesn't seem to do when speaking off the cuff or reciting memorized lines. (Teleprompter training, guys.) And the way he occasionally turns his head to be shot from a new camera angle (presumably this wasn't all filmed in one take) can't help but recall Stephen Colbert's faux dramatic pivots. The speech itself is a peculiar laundry list of disparate and frequently not-all-that-impressive accomplishments. He attaches himself a little more closely than I suspect is wise to the 1994 Gingrich revolution. And at one point he boasts that, as head of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, he "led an investigation and held hearings" that resulted in--wait for it--a report that is still available on the internet! In all, a surprisingly amateurish production for a candidate who is usually quite charismatic and ought to be defined by his superior stagecraft. Also, as per my comments on the Leno appearance, his analysis of our role in Iraq, and by extension himself, is explicitly characterological: Our success will be judged not merely by "battlefield victories," but by the "determination of the American people," our "clarity and conviction." Be prepared to hear a lot of this from his direction. --Christopher Orr