Patrick Cox writes an appreciation of Fred. It starts well.
In retrospect, I suspect that the critics who said he started too late were right, though not for the reasons that most posited. Fred was correct when he quipped on Leno that the American people would not hold it against him that he waited a few months to officially declare. Everybody I know, however, underestimated how important it is to have political allies lined up ahead of time.
Then he goes – tellingly, perhaps – a little off the rails.
His clout and connections in Hollywood put him in a unique and valuable position. If the good Senator chooses to do so, he can do for the entertainment business what Rupert Murdoch did for television news. Just as a monolithic leftist media bias opened a hugely profitable door for Murdoch to walk through, Fred Thompson can use the door created by a a leftist and exclusionary Hollywood. In the end, he may be able to use his increased respect and visibility to create a pro-freedom, pro-American studio that teaches the principles of the Enlightenment not just to Americans but to the world. If he does, he may actually accomplish more than a Thompson presidency could have.
The good Mr. Cox needs to brush up on his Sam Goldwyn: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union”. Hollywood doesn’t produce left-biased entertainment because that’s part of the business charter, and any studio that sets up a particular point of view as part of the business plan will last about as long as it takes for the earnestly-bad screenwriters to photocopy their 140 pages of what should be 80 pages. It just doesn’t work that way.
If someone sets up a studio that welcomes pro-freedom story tellers, that might work. It would have to be completely blind to the political content of the movies, though, and make entertainment. I’m not sure I’d hold up Murdoch and Fox “Not Quite as Liberal as the Others” News as a paradigm of “accomplishing more” than a presidency could.
The article made me wonder about the caliber of advisor Fred had.
