George Murphy Lives

Having finally sealed the long coming merger between politics and entertainment (or politics as entertainment) begun by Ronaly Regan and before him George Murphy, Fred Thompson has officially entered the presidential race. Will USA be forced to stop running episodes of Law and Order that he is in or give all the other candidates equal time?

I must admit: I'm a big fan of Thompson the actor, and have been so at least since he played Knox Pooley on "Wise Guy" back in the 80s. And Arthur Branch is probably my favorite conservative after Denney Crane. My gut reaction is to vote for him because I have such a fondness for all the fake people he pretends to be. Stupid, no?

But really, in our post modern world, is there any difference anymore betwen politics and entertainment? I noted before how John Kerry hired writers off the West Wing to write speaches for him. It's all the same in the end.

Hollywood is supposed to be so liberal, and yet all those actors who get elected to office seem to live on the right somewhere. There has been no one in the White House who was more of a Hollywood insider than Regan, and the other politicians of note Hollywood has produced--Murphy and Schwarzenegger--are also republicans. Thompson is an actor that DC produced, which is not quite the same thing, but he's also a Republican. Just how conservative is liberal Hollywood really? Even Sonny Bono and Clint Eastwood were Republicans. And Fred Grandy? Republican! (for those who don't know, former four term congressman Fred Grandy of Iowa played Gopher on "The Love Boat.")