It was only a couple of months ago that Republicans were looking to Fred Thompson as their savior: the great whie (male) hope of the 2008 election.

What a difference a few weeks makes.  Rather then energizing his party, Thompson has proven to be perhaps the least capable candidate of the 18 people running for president.

Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred D. Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”

Then he stood face to face with a silent audience.

“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter. “Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.

Eeeey-ouch.  This comes just a few weeks after Thompson, while campaigning in Florida, drew such blank stares from his audience that he asked no one in particular if his microphone was on. It was.

The NYT notes that Thompson, in addition to not knowing much of anything about current events, doesn’t even seem to like campaigning.

After his events, he tended to stay for only a few minutes to sign some autographs or pose for some pictures. Mr. Thompson does not appear to share the taste of some of his rivals for lingering at the rope line shaking hands; he tends not to ask many questions of the people he meets and not to make prolonged eye contact with them.

Why is this guy even running?

UPDATE:  So I guess they’ve got a new great white male hope….

UPDATE:  Kos has more….

This guy is truly hilarious. From a radio interview yesterday, talking about tougher sanctions against Iran:

I’m afraid that the Soviet Union & China are not ever going to do anything that’s going to hurt them that badly but we need to ratchet those up if at all possible.

The Soviet Union.

You know, the country that hasn’t existed since 1991, or 16 years.

But then again, we know for a fact that Thompson doesn’t keep up on current affairs. He didn’t know about a landmark death penalty case in his home state, he didn’t know that a debate he was eager to attend had been cancelled, he didn’t know anything about the Jena Six, he didn’t know anything about the Schiavo case, he didn’t know about the oil-drilling controversy in the Everglades, he didn’t know that Republicans controlled Congress in 2005.

We knew he was boring and lulled audiences to sleep. Literally. We knew he demanded to be chauffeured around his little golf cart, lest he get pig shit on his Gucci loafers.