On the first night of the GOP convention, Fred Thompson, the actor-senator who flopped as a presidential candidate, was given the role of a lifetime. This grumpy old guy was asked to play Marie Antoinette. And he nailed it.

As soon as Thompson hit the podium to give one of the two centerpiece speeches of the night (his co-star was Joe Lieberman), he derided the Democrats for harping on the current economic difficulties, poking fun at them for acting as if the country was in the middle of another "great depression." He didn't accuse them of whining, but he came close, as he hailed the United States as a "prosperous" country. His performance garnered applauds from the delegates, many of whom, playing to type, looked as if they spend more time at the country club fretting about tee times than at the kitchen table worrying about bills.

There are two Americas, it seems. One with concerns about the nation's economy, the other in happy denial. And the latter was in full view at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. Through opening night, there were hardly any references to the troubles at hand. The convention spent more time celebrating former military heroes and POWs than addressing worries voters might have about the economy, health care, education, climate change or any other issue other than national security. On these fronts, it was as if the Republicans had nothing to say. Thompson tried to get the crowd stirred up over taxes and abortion, but that was so 1980s. Voters viewing the proceedings could be forgiven for wondering, what are these guys going do for me and my neighbors?

That was odd, given that the slogan of the convention is "Country First." What was being placed first by McCain's convention planners was McCain--specifically McCain the POW. This night was not about country; it was not about what can be done to make this country better and stronger; it was not about offering policy proposals that would improve the lives of Americans; it was about promoting a brand: Hero McCain.

After the first night was over, I strolled over to a hotel bar and met up with several journalists and pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz mentioned that in Michigan only 9 percent of the voters believe the country is on the right track. Nine percent? What do the McCainites think the other 91 percent in Michigan are looking to the GOP for? Heroic tales of McCain from 40 years ago? Hagiography?

It was a vapid start to a convention, which will probably end up being dominated by Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, not John McCain's. (Soap opera usually trumps politics.) But Tuesday evening was an example of hollow patriotism. Country First? No, it was McCain First. And a true patriot might consider placing the needs of his fellow countrymen ahead of his own political needs.

The conventional take is that neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton came out well during Monday night's joint-slam of a debate. And on Tuesday, the cat-fight continued, with HRC belittling Obama and claiming he "was looking for a fight" because of his recent primary losses. As he did on Monday night, John Edwards called on the leading contenders to knock it off.

Bicker, bicker, bicker. It does make the face-off between Obama and Clinton look petty. And that is to Clinton's advantage.

She's once again in the lead. In New Hampshire and Nevada, she beat back Obama's politics of hope. Trench warfare has served her well. As I noted recently, Obama's challenge is to bond with voters in the upcoming primaries and to connect them to his unconventional and transformative brand of politics. It's one helluva tough assignment--especially given the size of the playing field for Supersaturated Tuesday on February 5. Clinton merely has to succeed in her conventional task: selling herself as the better-qualified candidate. If Obama gets tied up in schoolyard-style back-and-forth with Clinton, he will become bogged down. He will not soar. He needs to. She does not.

On Sunday, Obama delivered a triumphant speech at Martin Luther King Jr.'s church in Atlanta. (Watch it here; read it here.) Forget the budget deficit or the trade deficit, he said, the nation has a "a moral deficit...an empathy deficit." He explained; "I'm talking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brothers keeper; we are our sister's keep; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny."

He defended the importance of inspiring rhetoric:

That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words--words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

It was Obama at his best. And it was the sort of material upon which he should be judged as a presidential candidate--far more important than the nanny-nah-nah exchanges between him and Clinton.

So if Clinton can keep Obama engaged in spitball-slinging, she will be doing herself a favor. He is the candidate who needs the space to make an unconventional case. Clutter is her friend. A mudwrestle helps her, not him. Don't be surprised if the Clinton camp keeps squabbling alive.

LEAVING ALREADY? I weigh in on Fred Thompson's departure from the Republican race here.

The Fred shall rise again?

Well, he tried. At the GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, Fred Thompson, the lackadaisical former senator, finally got off the couch. His past debate performances-- like much of his campaign--have been a series of nothing burgers. He's acted the curmudgeon, grumbling about this or that and making a not very good fifth (sixth, seventh, eighth....) impression. But last night, when the opportunity arrived, he pounced--and lit into Mike Huckabee. Reading from notes--or a script--Thompson called the former Arkansas governor a "Christian leader" but (gasp!) a liberal when it comes to economic policies, foreign policy, and immigration policy. In one of the few instances of Thompson displaying any passion, he was bashing Huckabee, who deflected the blast with an aw-shucks response. It was as if some campaign aide had finally attached electrodes to his backside so Thompson, for at least 90 seconds, could show some pep. (I could imagine the cheers at Thompson HQ: "He's alive, he's alive!")

South Carolina is truly Thompson's last stand. But he's up against his old Senate pal John McCain, who's resurgent, and Huckabee, who plays well to the social conservatives of the Palmetto State. South Carolina was McCain's Waterloo in 2000, but as a national-security-first Republican maybe this time around he can win over the Republicans who did not fancy him as a maverick eight years ago. And Huckabee can grab those religious rightwingers who still recall that McCain dissed Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the religious right during the 2000 campaign. That does not leave much space for Thompson, a son of the South.

Thompson's flopping performance (so far) has been one of the surprises of the 2008 campaign. Remember the conventional wisdom that he got into the race too late? Well, maybe he entered the contest too early. He was much better as an almost-candidate than as an actual candidate. The consensus explanation for his lack of success (so far) is that he's been a lazy and lousy candidate who has not shown any flash or zeal. That's certainly true. But I have another theory.

Thompson has spent more of his years as a Hollywood actor than as a politician. And as an actor, he's been quite lucky. People keep developing roles that suit him, but each one is essentially the same role. We need a gruff White House chief of staff. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff district attorney. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff president. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff admiral. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff CIA director. Let's get Thompson. We need a gruff senator. Let's get Thompson. Or in the case of his first movie, Marie, we need Thompson. Let's get Thompson.

Fred Thompson has not had to stretch his acting chops much. He has basically had to hit his mark, read his lines, and be himself. He's done that well, and he's made millions of dollars. But he never developed range or flexibility as an actor. He could do gruff--and perhaps laconic--but not a lot more.

So there he was early last year, pursuing his acting career, when people started telling him they had another part for him: presidential candidate. He jumped into the race believing that, once more, he could play himself and wow the crowds. But this script demanded more of Thompson. He might have (for some) looked the part--though it does seem he's aged six years in six months--but he did not possess the skills needed to connect with the audience, I mean voters, who were expecting more than a gruff former prosecutor/admiral/CIA director/chief of staff. He's been mailing in his performance and receiving the predictable reviews. The debate last night was not quite a career-reviving moment, even if it did show Thompson had a dollop of spunk left in him.

In recent weeks, my one-liner take on Thompson has been this: if you want your cranky uncle to be president, Thompson is your candidate. Last night didn't change that review. Thompson still has to prove to Republican voters there's more to Fred Thompson than just Fred Thompson.

According to Fred Thompson, George W. Bush has been derelict in his duty as commander in chief. How else to explain Thompson's latest policy initiative?

On Tuesday, Thompson unveiled what he has dubbed his "Four Pillars of a Revitalized National Defense." You might ask, why must the national defense of the United States of America be revitalized after nearly seven years of the Bush administration? And remember that for most of this time, Bush's GOP controlled Congress. Yet Thompson is saying that on Bush's watch, the military has not been properly managed. He is essentially calling Bush a devitalizer.

His Pillar No. 1: boosting military spending. Apparently, Bush's 60-percent hike in Pentagon expenditures since 2001 (in real terms) hasn't been enough--even though U.S. military spending now represents almost two-fifths of the world's total military tab. And at $626 billion, the U.S. military budget is about seven times the size of the military budget of China, the second largest military spender on the planet. It also is much larger than the combined military spending of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Cuba (about $15 billion). But still, six-tenths of a trillion dollars is not enough for Thompson. So he must believe that Bush has imperiled the nation by spending too little during the previous six years.

For Pillar No. 2, Thompson wants to increase the size of the military to create a "million-member" ground force. Right now, the Army has about half a million troops, and the U.S. Marines Corps has about 180,000. Bush has called for increasing the Army to 550,000 and the Marines to 202,000. But yet again, Bush--as Thompson sees it--is not doing enough. Thompson advocates boosting the Army to 775,000 troops and beefing up the Marines to 225,000. Will there be a draft? Thompson doesn't say so. By the way, CBS News on Tuesday reported that Iraq war veterans have a suicide rate two to four times higher than civilians the same age. How's that for a recruitment pitch?

Moving on to Pillar No. 3. "The U.S. must modernize its Armed Forces," Thompson insists. That's obviously one more important task Bush did not get to while he was busy with the Iraq war.

Pillar No. 4: "The U.S. must take better care of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines....We must also take care of our veterans by fixing the VA system." Is Thompson implying that Bush has not done all he can to support the troops and our wounded warriors? (See the suicide stats mentioned above.)

It would appear that Thompson has a low regard for the current military status quo. And who's to blame for that?

Of course, Thompson doesn't point a finger directly at Bush. Now that would take guts, for the GOP presidential contenders don't want to criticize the president and possibly piss off Republican voters. (John McCain wimps out by blasting Donald Rumsfeld, not Bush, for the mismanagement of the war.) Thus, we have the spectacle of Thompson calling for revitalizing a military establishment that has been run by his own party for seven years and holding no one accountable for doing a lousy job. (By the way, Thompson is crashing in recent polls--for instance, placing sixth in New Hampshire.)

In a speech on Tuesday at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, Thompson promoted his four pillars and proclaimed, "We can either build up and deter war, or we can allow our forces to wither and risk conflict." That is a false either/or. He left out one option: use well the extensive resources already committed and pledged by the Bush administration to the military. But from Thompson's perspective, sticking with what we got would put America at risk. And that makes Bush, in the world according to Thompson, the weakener-in-chief.

Is Fred Thompson a serious fellow? A few months ago, as I've previously noted, he joined the ranks of global warming deniers. On Wednesday, while campaigning, he described the conflict in Iraq in rather simplistic terms. Discussing why it was necessary for the United States to remain in Iraq, he referred to the Iraqi insurgency as "a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices." And he noted that if the United States couldn't defeat such an enemy, it would look weak.

Is that what Iraq is about? The mighty American military versus kids with IEDs? Such a view leaves out all the sectarian and geopolitical rivalries and complexities driving the conflict. Thompson fans like to say that he has a bit of Reagan in him when it comes to details--meaning, he's a big picture guy who can articulate larger themes without getting bogged down in policy wonkery. But at least Ronald Reagan read Reader's Digest. Thompson just seems to pop off. For instance, he talks about reforming Social Security without knowing the specifics of the last policy debate on Social Security.

Given the demands that will be placed on the next president (thanks to the actions of this president), a candidate who can tell you what he thinks about policy matters (in folksy fashion, of course) without being able to talk about the details might not be the appropriate fella for the job.

WHAT'S SO FUNNY? Last night, Elvis Costello played at the birthday-bash-fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, and one number he chose to feature was "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding?" This for a woman who voted to give George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq on his own say-so, and who then stuck by the war...until she saw that her potential competitors in the Democratic presidential contest could run as antiwar candidates against her. She then slowly changed her position, from resisting timetables for disengagement to vowing to the end the war ASAP. In the strategic play of the campaign, she managed to make sure there was little daylight between her and Barack Obama or John Edwards on the number-one issue of the election. What's so funny about that? Not much.


WATCHING THE WATCHDOG. In her take on BloggingHeads.tv hitting it big with The New York Times, Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar writes of the PinkerCorn diavlog featured by the Times,

Fun fact: Today's vid is billed as "A Discussion of Baseball, Politics and God" which Corn launches by inveighing against sportswriters who invoke God to explain the outcome of athletic events--which is ironic, because I, too, have mocked a sportswriter in print for so wondering "how else to explain" the White Sox victory two years ago. Where is the irony, you ask? In the sportswriter: It was Tyler Kepner...of the New York Times! What a coincidence! God must totally have made it happen.

A correction, if I may. I never inveighed against sportswriters for citing divine intervention. I inveighed against the general manager of the Colorado Rockies for telling USA Today--in all seriousness--that God had a hand in the Rockies' success on the playing field. I thought I was clear on that point.

Meanwhile, in our continuing God Is Great feature, let us note that last night the Red Sox beat the God-is-on-our-side Rockies, 2 to 1, and took a 2 to 0 lead in the World Series. I know, I know--this is all a setup for the coming Rockies' resurrection. God likes a good show.