Thank You, Gustav

Thanks to Hurricane Gustav and the California budget crisis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was bumped from the speaker lineup, and according to this story, Fred Thompson did his speech instead:

In an interview with the German mag Der Spiegel, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that he was originally to give the heart-rending account of John McCain's time as a POW.

He also calls Sarah Palin "feisty' and a "good looking woman," while suggesting he expected (and perhaps hoped) McCain to have tapped Lieberman or Pawlenty.

The speech I would have given is the one that Fred Thompson gave. I gave him my speech because I did not go to the convention. It was a great speech because it talked in minute detail about McCain’s torture and his being a POW, and that’s the speech that the party wanted me to give.

Dodged a bullet on that one. Fred's sonorous baritone and dramatic delivery made that speech highly effective and very moving. If Ahnold had given that speech with his accent, it would have sounded like Colonel Klink talking about Colonel Hogan.