Opinion: Seems like we’ve heard these lines before

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A longtime friend and current top advisor to Rudy Giuliani has taken the type of shot at Fred Thompson that is likely to intensify now that the latter has joined the race for the Republican presidential nomination for real.

‘Rudy is a real crime fighter,’ Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) told the New York Post. ‘Fred Thompson has primarily done it on television.’

King, who as a young man clerked one summer -- along with Giuliani -- at a law firm that included Richard Nixon as a partner, went on: ‘Rudy got crime in New York City under control -- not by acting, but by getting results.’

Thompson’s camp provided the predictable response, noting that his background includes a stint as a federal prosecutor in his home state of Tennessee.

Still, there’s little question that his acting career -- particularly the prominence he gained playing a district attorney the last few years on NBC’s ‘Law & Order -- fueled the groundswell that pushed the somewhat reluctant Thompson into the presidential fray.

And we’re sure King knows that barbs similar to the one he aimed at Thompson haven’t seemed to cut much ice in contemporary politics, most obviously in his own party. Just ask California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. And although it was famously said of Ronald Reagan that he fought World War II on movie back lots, that didn’t stop him from becoming commander in chief.

-- Don Frederick