WaPo bimbo plays "What's in a name?" with Fred Thompson

Woodward and Bernstein would be proud of the WaPo staff bimbo "staff writer" Monica Hesse's political analysis:

In the swampy soup of hopefuls for the 2008 presidential election, there is a man with a funny name. (No, not that one.)

We're thinking of the one named Fred (Thompson).

Say it out loud. Do it. Fred. Fred. In the South, Fray-ud.

Fur-red-duh.

It has the tonal quality of something being dropped on the floor, something heavy and damp-ish.

Waterlogged paper towel.

Fred.

As if Monica hasn't tried hard enough to mock Fred and his intellect, she follows up with this:

The phonetics of the name seem integral to its image problem: On urbandictionary.com, a "Fred" is defined as "a person who does stupid, annoying, or idiotic things" (Fred Flintstone, Fred Mertz). The best-case descriptors a Fred can hope for are terms like well-intentioned, predictable, benign (Fred Rogers).

Whoa! Careful there Monica. Because you certainly wouldn't want anyone else going to the same source to look up the name "Monica."


I'll not print that. But here's a hint: