So, former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson is considering a run for the presidency in 2008. When I heard this, two things crossed my mind. 1) He is probably a better candidate than both Giuliani and McCain. He’s more conservative than both AND he doesn’t come with all the baggage Giuliani has. So, I consider Thompson a legitimate threat. That is, of course, from a cursory glance. 2) I have a personal grudge against Fred Thompson, and I will tell you why.

Years ago, a friend and I were leaving a movie theater here in Nashville. We had just seen the late showing of “Jerry Maguire” and were walking through the parking lot to our car. Walking ahead of us was (at the time) senator Fred Thompson. He had his arm wrapped around a blond woman. I believe he may have been dating the country star Lorrie Morgan at the time, but I really couldn’t say. Anyway, senator Fred happens to glance over his shoulder and upon seeing me and my friend (two tall African-American men), he tightens his grip around the woman’s shoulders and suddenly their pace quickens. Now, I can honestly tell you that my friend and I are two upstanding people who have never accosted senators or blond women before in our lives. However, senator Fred must have thought that we looked threatening. It was dark. We were black. Perhaps he was a fan of his future employer Law & Order at the time and surmised that he had seen this script before. Who knows? But it pissed me off. I wonder if people understand that if you treat people like criminals, ultimately you get what you asked for. It’s like a man who constantly accuses his wife of cheating. Sooner or later she is going to get fed up and do the deed. Not because she is a cheat, but because his suspicion weakens her constitution and ultimately, she reacts in a rebellious and often self-destructive way.

Now, I was pissed but had no intention of causing senator Fred any harm. But it did arouse my ire quite a bit. And as a result, I am holding a grudge. That was over ten years ago that that happened. Should I still be angry about it? Senator Fred and I have opposing views on a lot of things, so I wouldn’t vote for him anyway, but I seriously doubt I could vote for someone who thought I was someone he needed to walk briskly away from. You cut me, senator Fred. You cut me deep.

When I was a kid I read this comic in Mad magazine where a white guy is walking down a dark, quiet sidewalk. He glances nervously behind his shoulder and sees a black man walking closely behind. The white guy speeds up. The black man speeds up. The white guy is getting more and more nervous and thinks to himself, “This guy won’t stop following me. Every time I speed up he speeds up. I knew this was a bad neighborhood.” Behind the white guy, the black man looks equally nervous and he is thinking, “Why does this guy keep speeding up? I don’t want to be walking in this bad neighborhood all alone”

I paraphrased, but you get my point. Things are not always as they seem.