There were real angles on Thompson, who had been a U.S. senator and, worse, a longtime lobbyist who had represented everyone from nuclear power companies to Haitian dictator Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the Tennessee Savings and Loan Association. His wife worked for Burson-Marsteller, the PR/lobby firm that had represented practically every corporate malefactor on earth, from Union Carbide to the makers of the Dalkon Shield. But all I heard on the bus was a debate between reporters about whether or not Thompson was the next Reagan or a hapless lazybones, as if the two things were incompatible.
