A Fred by any other name

UPDATE (8:05 am 9/3/07): Normally I put updates at the end of the post. But this time I want to make sure my visitors from the Land of Insanity, a/k/a Free Republic, feel welcome. Thanks for the link, and be sure to read my response to your thread o' silliness. Shoot, just hang out for a while and learn a thing or two.

Now to the original post (which was not nice to Fred, btw) ...

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Sunday's WaPo had a fun article (well, the rightard blogs are claiming it's another example of what they ironically allege is "liberal media bias," but anyway ...) about the name "Fred." According to the author, putative GOP presidential actor candidate Fred Thompson suffers from an image problem because of his name.

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.

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).

"Waterlogged paper towel?" That sounds suspiciously like my own nickname for Fred, the "Crumpled Paper Bag." I mean, seriously. Just look at the guy.


Crumpled. Paper. Bag.

Honestly, I think Fred's image problem comes less from his name and more from the fact that, you know, he's a wingnut with a trophy wife whose biggest claim to fame, other than a brief stint as a U.S. senator, is that he's a mediocre actor. But I digress ...

When Chris Matthews, a/k/a Tweety, he of the 16 honorary doctorates!!, thinks of Fred, he doesn't see a crumpled paper bag. He sees unmitigated sex appeal. And he's not the only one.

Recent media accounts of the guy (who has not yet officially announced his candidacy) would have us believe that being a Fred means Law & Orderly sex-in-a-suit, a name exuding such flypaper pheromones that people find themselves helplessly drawn in. Chris Matthews dedicated three minutes of a recent "Hardball" to exploring Thompson's sex appeal. London's Sunday Times last month interviewed a bevy of his ex-girlfriends, all of whom have drunk the Fred-Aid: "He's majestic," said country singer/Fredophile Lorrie Morgan. "Women love a soft place to lay and a strong pair of hands to hold us."

Fred?

Why? Is there something about the craggy actor we're not getting? Maybe he's ugly-sexy, like Mick Jagger?

Fortunately, we have a scientific opinion on the matter:

Grant Smith is an onomastician at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, who studies the branch of linguistics dedicated to proper names. He specializes in dissecting the monikers of political candidates and says he has a 65 percent success rate of predicting elections, based solely on name analysis. Not entirely convincing, but those odds would play in Vegas. "The name Fred is basic and homey," says Smith. "It should give people a reassuring image."

But is it, Dr. Smith, a sexy name?

Silence.

"I would not say that. The name Fred does not suggest blatant sexuality at all."

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought.

Well, whatever his name is, I guess Democrats underestimate the candidacy of a mediocre actor at their peril. On the other hand, the last mediocre actor to run for president had a bit more, um, experience: no matter what your opinion of Ronald Reagan may be, you have to admit that being governor of California supercedes one abbreviated term in the U.S. Senate as far as presidential qualifications go.

I'm actually somewhat intrigued by a Fred run. I'd love to see if he can campaign his way out of a ... crumpled paper bag.