US News

FRED GETS IT ‘RIGHT’ FOR ONCE

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Like a fickle Hollywood actor who maddeningly keeps his own schedule, Fred Thompson finally walked on the set here last night and turned in the performance his long-suffering supporters have yearned for all these months.

The “Law and Order” star’s positions were more polished than ever. He attacked Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney sharply and effectively.

And he stayed above the fray when the fights around him got downright nasty.

Giuliani, meanwhile, gave the performance his supporters have always feared, showing his most liberal feathers to date.

He had to defend his past coddling statements about illegal immigration, said constitutional gun rights are open to modification, and faced a question about using New York cops to protect him while snuggling in the Hamptons with a woman not then his wife.

The former mayor’s position drew boos from the conservative audience on more than one occasion. Where Giuliani stumbled, Thompson soared.

“Cut taxes for eight years when I was in the United States Senate. Never met a tax I liked,” he said simply when asked if he would ever sign a bill to raise taxes.

After Giuliani attacked Romney for having illegal aliens do his yard work, Thompson said he was surprised to hear the mayor scolding anyone about bad hires.

It was a clear and devastating reference to Giuliani’s former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, who now faces federal corruption charges.

And he took a stick to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is now surging in polls.

A video clip produced by the Thompson campaign showed a corpulent Huckabee begging his legislature for a tax hike – any tax hike – so he could sign it.

It was a sight so ugly only someone in the movie business could have come up with it.