Defending the indefensible

Mike Crowley has a jolly piece* in the new issue of The New Republic in which he gallantly makes the case for Fred Thompson. Or rather, strictly speaking, suggests that it’s wrong to pick on Thompson’s laziness (there being, after all, many other, better, reasons to be suspicious of Thompson’s potemkin candidacy). Still, candidates are expected to be busy forever debasing themselves before a largely uninterested electorate like so many demented performing bears, trapped inside the campaign cage and driven crazy. Mike sanely observes:

Knowing this, most candidates dare not allow themselves to be branded as anything but fanatical workers. Indeed, they even find ways of driving themselves to needless exhaustion simply to advertise their tirelessness. Shortly before the 2004 Iowa caucuses, for instance, John Kerry embarked on a nonstop 24-hour bus tour. Kerry advisers touted this, according to The Boston Globe, as “a grueling schedule that would reflect Kerry’s own taste for hard work.”