President Peckerwood

Well, doggies. Huckleberry, I say, Huckleberry Fred Thompson, the nation's most talented Southern actor since Jim Varney passed on, has thrown his hat into the G.O.P. presidential ring. We'll see plenty of Fred on the trail, mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief and looping his thumbs into his suspenders, the living embodiment of Matthew Harrison Brady and Willie Stark. Take a nice long sip of your lemmynade and get ready for some cornpone:

Leno introduced [Huckleberry] as "one of the most popular Republicans not running for president" and then asked, "You've been in the water for awhile now ... Are you starting to get a little wrinkly?"

"These wrinkles don't come from the water," the 65-year-old Thompson mugged.

"What does the water tell you?" Leno said.

"Nice and warm," Thompson said. "That's one thing I wanted to talk to you about. "I'm running for president of the United States."

The audience erupted into cheers.

Junior Samples couldn't have said it better.