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Frist: Fred Thompson Will Run and Win
Friday, April 27, 2007 8:19 a.m. EDT
This article was written by Paul Bond.

The question of whether Fred Thomspson will run for president has been settled: He’ll run, and he’ll win. That is if one is to believe the prognostic powers of Thompson’s friend Bill Frist, the former U.S. Senate majority leader.

Frist gave his prediction Tuesday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, where he shared a stage with Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, former Congressman Harold Ford Jr., former head of the Republican National Committee Kenneth Mehlman, The Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report Mortimer Zuckerman.

"I have a relationship with all these people — a bad one,” quipped Ailes, just before pressing each on their presidential prediction. Mehlman said Rudy Giuliani will be the next president while Huffington predicted Barack Obama. Zuckerman said the next president will be Michael Bloomberg, the Republican New York mayor who, like Thompson, hasn’t declared himself a candidate.

Only Ford demurred, telling Ailes that, as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council he’d rather not show favoritism to one Democratic candidate over others. Huffington also noted that former Vice President Al Gore has been losing weight, a sure sign (maybe) that he’s thinking of throwing his hat into the ring.

Not so fast, joked Ailes. Gore is losing weight "because he thinks Greenland is gonna break off and he’ll have to run” from it. Ailes, known for his good-natured barbs at these sorts of events, prodded the sold-out audience to read Huffington’s blog, huffingtonpost.com, daily, even though it contains "a reasonable amount of nonsense.” When the inevitable topic of the Iraq war came up, Huffington proclaimed, "The American Army is broken.” Ailes likened fighting terrorists in Iraq to dancing with a bear: You don’t stop until the bear says it’s time to stop.

The Milken event ran Sunday-Wednesday. Other participants included Sen. John Kerry, his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, tennis star Andre Agassi, actors Michael J. Fox and Kirk Douglas and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., parent company of Fox News Channel, the New York Post and dozens of other media assets worldwide.

Murdoch defended George W. Bush and criticized the media for endlessly bashing the president while downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism. "I’m a supporter of President Bush, but I do believe he’s a bad — or inadequate — communicator,” Murdoch said. While Bush is personally persuasive, strong and articulate, "he seems to freeze whenever a television camera appears.”

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Thompson remains our pick for President in '08 without hesitation. --JZ