Apologies if someone has already asked this, but do we think it annoys Team Thompson that good ol' Fred isn't included in the eight headshots of political big dogs that regularly appear at the top of ABC's The Note? (Specifically, it's Must Reads.) POTUS contenders Obama, McCain, Hillary, Romney, Rudy, and Edwards are all there, along with Speaker Pelosi and our lame-duck president. But no Fred.
I suppose the Thompson campaign could claim to be pleased about this, citing it as proof that they're not part of the political establishment. (Which is, of course, a big fat lie, but sounds good in an election that's supposed to be about change.) But since political obsessives (and especially the reporters who help shape the cw) are really the only folks who read The Note, all Fred's absence from the line-up does is send a signal that the candidate and his campaign aren't regarded as part of the central political discussion.
--Michelle Cottle