Harkin: Lazy Is 'Inside Word' On Fred Thompson

(Cross-posted at Iowa Independent)
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin today said that GOP presidential aspirant Fred Thompson appeared to be “bored” in the Senate and earned a reputation for being lazy.

“That’s sort of the inside word,” Harkin said. “That’s what people are saying. I mean, people who know him better than I are saying that.”

Thompson, a star of television’s “Law And Order” with a long list of movie credits to his name as well, is a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee. He was elected to the Senate in 1994 to fill Al Gore’s unexpired term and then cruised to re-election for a full term in 1996. But since his name began surfacing as a savior candidate for a largely dispirited GOP, the back story floating around on Thompson is that he’s as lazy as that hang-dog countenance of his would suggest. Slate ran a piece on Thompson called “Lazy Fred.”

In a conference call with Iowa Independent and other media Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who has been in Congress since 1974 (10 years in the House before his election to the Senate in 1984), said he knew Thompson and got along “all right” with him. But Harkin said he was never impressed with the actor’s work ethic on The Hill.