London Daily Mail slams Fred

Well, the artillery's out against Fred Thompson, and it's falling short. One London rag is trying to run him through the mud, implying who knows what about his divorce (which frankly seems amicable enough as such things go). They point out that the grounds for the divorce were alleged to be "mental cruelty"--"cruel and inhuman treatment" being the Tennessee equivalent.

The Daily Mail's tawdry crapslingers either concealed or didn't bother to research the fact that before no-fault divorce became the norm in America, "mental cruelty" was the standard pleading for what now might be termed "irreconcilable differences" or "incompatibility".* Why, Buck Owens even wrote a song about how that damaging accusation was the default excuse employed in the absence of evidence of, say, infidelity or abuse.

The rest of their article rehashes stuff well known to most Americans: his first wife was pregnant when they married, and when he was single, as Fred put it "I chased the girls, and the girls chased me," about which I said back in May:

...I’ll bet even the most austerely religious voters will overlook a stretch of serial monogamy from a single Senator–especially if that Senator has the decency to blush about it. And as long as nothing too weird, creepy, or caddish emerges.

Because, setting aside our particular doctrines and ethics, we all know that how a man treats women says a lot about his character. Whether or not this is an issue will depend on whether Senator Thompson conducted his affairs as a gentleman, or whether we are instead talking about some priapic D.C. soap opera starring Fred the Rampaging Bald-Headed Sex Monster.

...

(I also think that if it were to emerge that Senator Thompson tends to exclaim “Rack ‘em, pack ‘em, and stack ‘em!” during moments of passion, that could create some problems for his candidacy.)

The only other thing the Daily Mail's "investigation" has plowed up worth noting is the secret to Fred's success:

One day when he was due to pitch at a baseball match, Thompson persuaded his father to lend him a tail-finned Buick. A friend drove while Thompson, wearing a smoking jacket, reclined in the back seat. As Sarah and her friends giggled, he slowly peeled off the jacket and donned his baseball glove.

Mesmerised by his attention, Sarah agreed to a date.

Ah ha! Those of you familiar with my publicity photo are already no doubt aware of the sheer animal magnetism the smoking jacket exudes:

Sorry ladies, this is all for Mrs. See-dub.

* Great line I remember from a sermon I heard when I was about 13: "Brethren, today too many marriages are in trouble because of this problem of 'incompatibility'. Well, I submit to you today that it wouldn't be so much of a problem if the husbands would just work more on their income, and the wives would work on their pat-ability".