No term limits in television

Fred Thompson, attorney-turned- actor- turned- senator- turned-actor, met the media in Hollywood last week at the semiannual gathering of television reporters and critics. Having served two terms in the Senate as a Republican from Tennessee, Thompson now plays a district attorney on NBC’s “Law & Order.” What’s the word from the nexus of politics and entertainment? The media wanted to know.

Question: “Mr. Thompson, why did you decide ... after you decided to leave the Senate to go back to acting? How much -- did you miss it much while you were in politics?”

Thompson: “No, it really didn’t come about that way. I had decided when I first ran for office I wouldn’t stay there forever. I put term limits on myself. I’ve always thought that our founding fathers had the right model, and George Washington, who served eight years, set the right example, and that is, you know, come in for a while and serve and go back and live in the real world again .... That’s the way I looked at politics. So I wound up leaving a little before I had originally planned.

“And several things went into that. Some personal tragedy, things of that nature. But I’d always planned to go back out .... I assumed that I’d be doing maybe a movie occasionally, as I had done before. But this came about after I announced that I was going to leave ....”

Question: “Have you had a chance to see ‘The West Wing’?”

Thompson: “Some. Not much.”

Question: “Just the view of politics on the show, are there any -- what’s the general opinion in Washington about that show?”

Thompson: “Maybe if they were preaching a different sermon, I’d find it more interesting. [Laughter] But to have some staff person giving these long, flowery, idealistic lectures to the president of the United States, always in the same vein, is just not that entertaining to me.”

-- Paul Brownfield