FRED THOMPSON WAS 'GRUMPING' TO HOWARD BAKER ABOUT BEING CALLED
LAZY; BAKER TOLD HIM, 'THEY'VE GOT TO CRITICIZE YOU FOR SOMETHING AND
THAT'S NOT A BAD ONE, BECAUSE YOU CAN DISPROVE IT'
ONE THING THAT QUALIFIES THOMPSON TO BE PRESIDENT: 'HE APPROACHES
THINGS CALMLY, DELIBERATELY -AND HE DOESN'T SHOOT FROM THE HIP,' SAYS
BAKER
As Fred Thompson prepares to formally begin his campaign for the White
House this week, after months of "testing the waters," the conventional
wisdom in Washington is that Thompson doesn't want it badly enough,
isn't willing to work hard enough -- put bluntly, that he is lazy.
Thompson knows what people say about him -- and it bugs him, Newsweek
reports in the current issue. "Fred was grumping to me about that the
other day," Howard Baker, the former Tennessee senator and Reagan White
House chief of staff who was one of Thompson's political mentors, tells
Newsweek. "I told him, 'They've got to criticize you for something, and
that's not a bad one, because you can disprove it'."
In the September 10 Newsweek cover, "Lazy Like a Fox" (on newsstands
Monday, September 3), White House Correspondent Holly Bailey examines
Thompson's career as a politician, lawyer and lobbyist and the impact
it will have on his presidential campaign. "He needs to show he has the
appetite for a presidential campaign, and he hasn't shown that yet,"
says a top White House official who did not want to be named sticking a
knife in the back of a fellow Republican. "It's the hardest work in the
world. I'm not sure he wants to work that hard."
Bailey reports that, like most political attacks -- aimed at
defining an opponent before he can define himself -- the claim that
Thompson has spent a lifetime skating by on his God-given talents is a
little too easy, and more than a little wrong. In his long, meandering
career -- as a young Tennessee prosecutor who won 14 of 15 bank-robbery
cases, a twice -- elected senator and Washington lobbyist, and an
accidental actor who stars in one of the most popular shows on
television -- Thompson has never lost a job, or a campaign, because of
a lack of effort. "If I had to pick one thing that qualifies him to be
president," says Baker, "it's this: he approaches things calmly,
deliberately -- and he doesn't shoot from the hip."
This time around, some close to Thompson question whether moving
into the White House is truly Thompson's life ambition -- or more the
dream of his second wife, Jeri, a former GOP operative who is his
unofficial campaign manager and top adviser. People "wonder if she's
more into this than he is," says a Thompson adviser, who asked not to
be named talking about private matters.
Bailey reports on Thompson's early years, where the lazy rap started
when he was kid in tiny Lawrenceburg, Tenn. Neither of his parents made
it past eighth grade, and young Freddie, as he was known, didn't have
much use for studying either. Big and gangly -- his friends called him
Stick -- Thompson clowned around in class and was a regular in the
principal's office. It wasn't
that he was stupid-far from it. "He was smart, everyone knew it,"
says Chunky Moore, a former classmate. "He just wasn't real interested
in school."
He was interested in sports, and if Freddie Thompson wasn't what
you'd call a finesse player -- he was a mess of arms and legs running
with a ball -- he managed to lead Lawrenceburg High to the state
championships in basketball and football. Thompson was voted most
outstanding athlete, but he never received the award. The school's
teachers, fed up with Thompson's classroom antics, demanded he be
stripped of the prize.
Thompson's interest in sports waned when he fell for Sarah Lindsey,
a local beauty queen and daughter of a prominent family who was a year
ahead of him in school; he cut practice to spend time with her. A few
months after she graduated, Sarah got pregnant. Thompson was 16. In
September 1959, two weeks after Thompson's 17th birthday, they were
married. They named their son, born the next spring, Fred Jr. A senior
in high school, Thompson was a husband and father.
Sarah put off college and Thompson moved into her parents' house. He
was through with sports; he needed to make money to support his new
family, and he began working nights at her family's factory building
church pews. Friends say they saw a change in him. No longer the clown,
Thompson seemed determined to prove that Sarah's parents were wrong
about him. "He studied more, socialized less," Moore recalls. "He
basically focused on his family." With tutoring from Sarah, Thompson
brought up his grades. His senior-year epigram, inscribed next to his
picture in the yearbook, read: "The lazier a man is, the more he plans
to do tomorrow."
That fall, they headed to nearby Florence State University in
Alabama but Thompson dropped out and took on three jobs. He returned to
school the next spring and majored in physical education, still with
the aim of becoming a high-school basketball coach. He didn't think he
was cut out for anything else. With a second baby, daughter Betsy, on
the way, the couple moved back to Tennessee and enrolled at Memphis
State, but he no longer saw himself coaching ball. Influenced by
Sarah's uncle, a respected attorney, he set his sights on law school.
To prepare, he took on a new double major: philosophy and political
science. Still working odd jobs between classes, he managed to earn top
grades, and won a full scholarship to Vanderbilt Law School. His third
child, Daniel, was born during his first year, and Thompson supported
the family working nights as a motel desk clerk. In 1967, he graduated
from law school near the top of his class.
Political Views 
FRED THOMPSON WAS 'GRUMPING' TO HOWARD BAKER ABOUT BEING CALLED
LAZY; BAKER TOLD HIM, 'THEY'VE GOT TO CRITICIZE YOU FOR SOMETHING AND
THAT'S NOT A BAD ONE, BECAUSE YOU CAN DISPROVE IT'
