But who cares? He's got shoulders you could land a bottle of English leather on! The Glob:

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

But Thompson can crack wise, in his genial, entirely genuine actorly manner, with the best of 'em:

Asked about the matter this week, Thompson -- who is preparing to run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination -- responded via e-mail without addressing the specific charge of being a Nixon mole: "I'm glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it's taken them over thirty years."

Nice non-denial denial! I'd say the man is Presidential timber!

Read the whole article. And reflect when you come to the word "leader"--that always means, to an authoritarian like Thompson, something different from what it means to you and me...

NOTE We've warned before that one of the issues with cleaning up after Bush--assuming that a Democrat is elected in 2008 and allowed to take power--that Bush will have infested the entire government with Federalist Society operatives, Christianist moles, and sleeper cells and moles of all kinds. How fitting, then, that the Republicans are themselves coming to settle on a mole as a Presidential candidate!