In what has to be the most inane op/ed I've read in months, the Washington Post does not attack Fred Thompson for his stand on the issues, no they hit him for his name. No, seriously:

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.

This drivel goes on for three entire Internet pages.

People get on bloggers such as myself for having no editors or filters, this woman wrote an entire opinion piece about the name "Fred." And yes, an editor in the stately offices of the WaPo allowed this to be printed in today's paper.

OK, lots of people have taken pot shots at Jeri Thompson, calling her, among other things, a trophy wife. The standard reply to this rather sexist accusation is that, no, Jeri Thompson is no bimbo, in fact, she's a lawyer. Dozens of stories have run in major news outlets propagating this claim. Fox, the AP, the Chicago Tribune, London's The Independent, The National Review, the USA Today, even (gasp!) some writers at this very blog. It seems that everybody in the media was eager to defend Jeri's credentials as a smart, competent woman by stating that she practiced law.

The problem? Jeri Thompson isn't a lawyer. Where does this revelation come to us from? Well, the Washington Post got it straight from Thompson campaign spokeswoman Linda Rozett. Money quote:

"Jeri Thompson does not have a law degree."

As Nixguy pointed out earlier, Fred himself also chose this day to clear up the confusion by chatting with the National Review's Byron York. Funny that. Especially after all the ink that has been spilled assuring the public that Mrs. Thompson is a practicing lawyer. Guess it just slipped Fred's and Jeri's mind to correct the record until now.

Byron York interviews Fred Thompson for a piece in National Review. Apparently, the former senator has about had it with the media attention on his wife.

"She has taken a lot of comments that should have been directed toward me," Thompson told me. When he started looking into running for president, Thompson said, there was a lot to be done and very little time to do it, and his wife played a key role in getting things going. "We started literally from the kitchen table a few months ago," he said. "While I did the things that I felt like I needed to do - I had a contract with NBC television, I had a contract with ABC radio, I was chairman of the advisory board on international security for the State Department, and a lot of other things - while I was disengaging from that and getting my thoughts together on issues and things of that nature, public comments I knew I would be called on to make, I asked her to do certain things for me. She did what I asked her to do."

And if they are going to talk about her, the least they could do is get the facts straight:

Some of the reports, Thompson said, have contained substantial factual errors. "Things that you would think could have been checked fairly readily," he told me, "but things that are clearly erroneous - like she's not a lawyer and she's never been married before. I listened to a news show with an expert commentator about a week ago talking about Jeri, and in a short segment he had four totally erroneous factual errors about her."

Fred should take comfort that the opposition (be it Republican or Democrat) is focusing on his wife. That's a sign of weakness. If the best they can do against Fred is to raise questions about his current wife, Fred is a very strong candidate indeed.

Fred Thompson must really have the liberals worried as the mouth piece for lefties throughout the land began their attacks in earnest. This from the vile vaunted NY Times:

As the election of 2008 approaches with its cast of contenders who bring unprecedented diversity to the quest for the White House, the voting public has been called on to ponder several questions: Is America ready for a woman to be president? What about a black man? A Mormon?

Now, with the possible candidacy of Fred D. Thompson, the grandfatherly actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee, whose second wife is almost a quarter-century his junior, comes a less palatable inquiry that is spurring debate in Internet chat rooms, on cable television and on talk radio: Is America ready for a president with a trophy wife?

Aside from the fact that they attack Fred Thompson for his age, what point did it serve to go after his wife? Jeri Kehn Thompson is a wife, mother and a highly successful professional woman. That would seem to meet the criteria set forth by the womens liberation movement the NY Times continually forces down our throats. Democrats still talk with great adoration of Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was the true example of a trophy wife; her husband was fooling around with anyone he could while she took care of the kids and gripped his arm at social functions; did the Times ever mention her as a "trophy wife"?