So what is up with Law & Order mainstay Fred Thompson, who is going to announce his run for the presidency (in real life) this week? Granted, we’d much prefer Sam Waterston as a candidate, but you don’t always get to pick these things. (By the way, all-time best Law & Order babe? Angie Harmon, hands down!)

Anyway, Thompson laid out his schedule for his much-anticipated, long-overdue candidacy: He’s going to hit Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and then his native Tennessee, all starting with a Wednesday appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Notice anything missing there? Oh, we don’t know. How about NEVADA! That’s right, second-in-the-nation NEVADA, where the Republican caucus will be held Jan. 19? Ever heard of Nevada, Mr. Thompson?

We only ask because we think it would be cool to meet Thompson. Fame factor and all.

» Now, we always assumed it took some smarts to run a really big company, like, say, MGM Mirage. But we’re starting to question that judgment, after Chairman and CEO Terry Lanni told our colleague Jon Ralston that Gov. Jim Gibbons is doing a "good job." (Ralston wrote about the exchange in his Friday column in the Las Vegas Sun.)

"I think he [Gibbons] is doing a good job as governor. I don’t agree with everything that he has proposed. But I am a supporter of Jim’s and continue to be," Lanni said.

OK, we understand that Lanni heavily backed Gibbons’ candidacy with (legal, reported) campaign contributions. We understand that politically, the state’s gambling industry needs to get along with the governor, and saying nice things about him publicly is a wise move.

But really: A good job? Which part of the job that Gibbons has done could be characterized as "good"? We don’t want to do the whole "Gibbons’ Problems List" here, but telling lies, being investigated by the FBI for allegedly receiving bribes, having your ridiculous napkin-headed picture on national TV, and campaigning hard for your own Jack Bauer Command Center (against the wishes of actual law enforcement officers working to prevent a terrorist attack), and bouncing the only representative of McCarran International Airport from a homeland security committee for nakedly political reasons can’t meet even the broadest definition of "good."

Do you think maybe Lanni got cut off mid-sentence? Yeah, that must be it. Lanni was probably trying to say, "I think Jim Gibbons is doing a good job [making a complete fool of himself] as governor. … But I am a supporter [of his immediate, involuntary commitment to a mental-health facility] and continue to be [alarmed that he's not in custody]."

Yeah, that’s probably what he was trying to say. Because you gotta be smart to run a big gambling company, right?

» OK, so maybe the headline writer at the Review-Journal screwed up when he or she accidentally attributed the "gas is going to be $9 a gallon if we pull out of Iraq now" statement to U.S. Rep. Jon Porter last week. (In truth, Porter says he was told that by U.S. generals and Iraqi officials, and was merely reporting what they’d told him.)

But c’mon. Shouldn’t the congressman take some responsibility? After all, he did think it worth repeating, right? And if somebody says something ridiculous, even if they’re quoting somebody else, they can’t escape all responsibility, especially if the statement is obviously false.

Like, if we said, "You know, this guy told us that the Republicans might just have a chance of not seeming like total jackoffs sometime before the end of the decade," you’d all think we were totally full of it, right? And we’d have to apologize, wouldn’t we?

» Speaking of Porter, we’ve got to disagree with the congressman about something. In Saturday’s Las Vegas Sun, he compared the occupation of Iraq to the last great war. "At the end of the day, the consequences are so great that I see this as big a war as World War II," he said.

Um, what?

In World War II, allies from around the globe came together to challenge a trio of power-mad dictators bent on world domination, and they did so only after the Continent and much of North Africa was under his control. In Iraq, the United States led a rag-tag coalition to invade a tin-pot dictator who couldn’t even conquer his unarmed neighbor. And in so doing, they created a situation that further destablized a region that — we admit — wasn’t that stable to begin with.

Iraq is nothing like World War II, in root cause, justification, planning or execution. It’s a civil war that American soldiers just happen to be in the middle of, and it’s very likely that civil war will continue whether we leave now or five years from now. Therefore, why not leave now?

We’re just saying.

» You know, we knew former Las Vegas Sun mainstay Ruthe Deskin. We read her column occasionally. And, we know current Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrison. And we read her column occasionally. And as much as the latter tries like hell to be like the former, we think it’s a lost cause. For one, Ruthe always had something to say. And for another, Ruthe always knew that the story was never, ever about her.

But everybody needs a role model to aspire to, we suppose, and Morrison could probably do a lot worse.

» U.S. Sen. Harry Reid comes off looking pretty good in Molly Ball’s Sunday profile in the Review-Journal. Maybe too good. Reid says he doesn’t regret his vote, and based it on the advice of people he respected, like Colin Powell. Evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction "…was confirmed by someone who I have great admiration — who I had great admiration for, Colin Powell."

But as we’ve already mentioned on this blog, Powell’s stirring star turn before the United Nations in which he alleged the presence of WMD in Iraq came months after the Senate, and Reid, had already voted to go to war. So how could Reid rely on Powell’s evidence to justify his vote, when Powell himself didn’t finish his "research" until shortly before the speech? It might have been a good question to put to Reid.

Reid says it took him a long time to come to the realization that he’d been lied to about Iraq. "You don’t have many epiphanies," Reid said. "Things usually take awhile to build up in a person’s mind. I don’t go to conclusions very quickly. I don’t think most of us do."

Really? How long should it take to answer the question — is it a good idea to give George W. Bush and Dick Cheney the option to wage war on a sovereign nation that never attacked America? We only ask because 21 of Reid’s fellow senators came to a rather quick answer, and voted against invading Iraq. History, it seems, has proven those people right. Or maybe it was just their relative safe seats?

"I have no military background. As a result of that, I have overcompensated in making sure that I do everything I can to be supportive of the military," Reid said. OK, we understand that. But a vote to invade Iraq was not a vote to be supportive of the military; it was a vote to be supportive of Bush, and his misbegotten, trumped up sales job for the war. Nobody should ever confuse the two.

Oh, and if Reid really has "turned from conservative, pro-war Democrat to one of the staunchest senators on the anti-war left," what can we make of his newfound desire to compromise with Republicans? If the anti-war left loves Reid so much, why is dailykos.com slamming him?

Answer: Reid is pragmatic. He knows he can’t get a troop withdrawal plan out of the Senate because of Republican opposition, so he’s putting the onus back on the War Party in an attempt to get half a loaf. It’s politically viable, but it excludes Reid from membership in the "anti-war left" by definition, since those people tend to stand on principle. (A principle other than political survival, that is.)

If there’s one thing you can say with 100 percent certainty, it’s this: U.S. Sen. John Ensign is full of shit.

Along with water is wet, the sky is blue, Mayor Oscar Goodman loves gin and the Earth revolves around the sun, a fundamental, metaphysical truth of the universe is that Ensign lies. And this weekend gives us plenty of fodder for saying so.

(Kudos and credits, first off, to our colleague Hugh Jackson over at Las Vegas Gleaner, who has also noted the senator’s mendacity.)

Now, we’re not talking about the fact that Ensign kept silent on the ridiculous tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, speaking out only after Gonzales had already stepped down. That proves only that Ensign is a coward, not necessarily a liar.

And we’re not talking about Ensign’s candid admission that he’s a liar. And a coward, for that matter, if you consider that one definition of cowardice is to deny one’s own conscience.

No, we’re talking all new stuff here. Consider:

In a long, ponderous piece about how U.S. Sen. Harry Reid has become "…one of the staunchest senators on the anti-war left," Ensign is quoted thus:

"I’m praying for our country’s sake that things go better in Iraq. I think it helps our party, but I’m much more concerned about it for our country. I like that fact that I’m hoping for good things for our country that happen to benefit us [Republicans] politically. I’m not sure the other side can say the same" (emphasis added).

"I don’t think the other side [Democrats] is being responsible. They’re playing politics while we’re at war, and I think it’s wrong" (emphasis added).

Oh, so Democrats are hoping for bad things for our country? Maybe praying for bad things for our country? Leave aside for a moment the fact that the guy in charge of getting senators elected next year thinks the war is a good thing. How twisted does your partisan mind have to get before you get the place where you think — let again, say aloud — that your political opponents are hoping for bad things for the country?

We at Various Things & Stuff know plenty of Republicans. We even like a few of them. And we’re convinced that all of the Republicans we know want good things for the country, insofar as they consider helping the rich get richer, privatizing everything in sight and putting up giant border fences good things for the country. We can’t, however, think of a single person we know in either party that hopes bad things happen to America.

And every time a Republican says that Democrats are "playing politics" with the war, we cannot help but think that Republicans invented playing politics with war. Was it not Republican Karl Rove who advised Republican candidates to run on the war? Was it not President George W. Bush who said U.S. Sen. John Kerry would weaken America? And didn’t Vice President Dick Cheney say that electing Kerry would increase the chances the United States would be "hit again" by terrorists? And isn’t it the Republican Party that questions the patriotism of Americans who dissent from the war, even when the dissenters are veterans themselves, like U.S. Rep. John Murtha or former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland?

But wait, there’s more. Ensign got himself invited on ABC’s This Week, where his moral confusion was on full display.

Why, host George Stephanopoulos wanted to know, did the Republicans act so swiftly to get U.S. Sen. Larry Craig to quit after he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charges after allegedly trolling for gay sex in a Minneapolis airport men’s room, but say virtually nothing about the antics of U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose name showed up in the phone records of a Washington D.C. escort service?

Well, Ensign said, those things happened before he got to the Senate. And, "He has not admitted to anything."

Of course, that was a lie. Vitter did admit to committing "a very serious sin in my past" for which, he said, he was "completely responsible." Stephanopoulos pointed that out, in the matter of fact way one corrects a dullard or known bullshitter. (Or maybe both.)

And, what does the timing of the crime have to do with anything? Just because Vitter’s misdeeds took place before he got to the Senate — and thus are outside the purview of the Senate Ethics Committee — is totally meaningless. A crime is a crime, no?

Let’s consider the men, side by side:

Craig: While an elected member of the U.S. Senate and maintaining the image of a family values conservative, surreptitiously sought sex in violation of the law in a Minneapolis airport men’s room from someone who turned out to be an undercover cop.

Vitter: While an elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives and maintaining the image of a family values conservative, surreptitiously sought sex in violation of the law from a Washington D.C. escort service.

Why, they seem totally alike to us. They’re both Republicans. They both sought sex. They both broke local laws in doing so.

Oh, wait: Craig was allegedly seeking sex from a man, while Vitter was allegedly seeking sex from a woman. That’s the difference! See, churchy Republicans like Ensign dislike gay sex, but don’t seem to mind straight sex. That’s why Craig will be remembered as the guy whose career was undone by a gay sex scandal and Vitter will continue to be known as "senator."

Think we’re being too harsh? Not at all: Who did Ensign pick to refer to when he needed an example of a Democratic politician caught in a sexual scandal? Did he pick former President Bill Clinton, who got a blowjob from a woman? No, Ensign reached all the way back to 1990 to remind voters that Barney Frank once dated a gay male prostitute.

Sick to your stomach yet? Well, let’s do one more for the road. Further along in the This Week interview, Ensign said this:

"It’s time to rise above politics. It’s time to start putting our country first above our party. … [Here a brief intermission where Ensign said more words.] I think the American people are really disgusted at what the Democrats have done in Washington. But it really is time to start being all this partisan bickering back and forth [sic] and sit down and work out the serious problems we have in this country."

No, that’s not a misquote. It’s Ensign saying we need to rise above politics, and man those Democrats are sure assholes, aren’t they? But still we need to work together with those bastards who I’m trying to drive from office in order to use government to boost the private sector as much as possible.

Do you think Ensign hears himself when he talks? Do you think he notices his lies, his ironies, or his odd verbal quirks?

One thing’s for sure: We most definitely hear them, and we’re going to make sure to call him on it. Because if nothing else, John Ensign is full of shit.

Or, as someone far more eloquent than we once put it: "It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason.)

Sound like anybody we know?