There’s a lot one could say about David Broder’s love letter to Fred Thompson today. But this tidbit pinged something in my mental sonar:

“There’s no reason for me to run just to be president,” he said. “I don’t desire the emoluments of the office. I don’t want to live a lie and clever my way to the nomination or election. But if you can put your ideas out there — different, more far-reaching ideas — that is worth doing.”

This is itself cliché of presidential campaigns. There are two kinds of candidates, men who want to “be something” and men who want to “do something” goes the standard line. And you’ll never hear a candidate saying he just wants to be president because it would be a wicked cool job to have, even though I’d bet 80% of presidential candidates want to be president for precisely that reason.

I mean just think about it. Men like George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore et al. wanted to be president from almost the moment they could walk. And yet we’re supposed to believe they’d only want the job if they could get great things done? I don’t buy it. They want the job because it’s the ne plus ultra (as Andy McCarthy likes to say) of American politics.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that these folks don’t want to accomplish things too. The same ego that enables these men to seriously consider running for office also enables them to imagine that they’ll knock it out of the park if they can just get to bat. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play! And, it makes sense as a marketing tool to claim that your presidency will really get things done.

But come on, are we supposed to believe that any of these guys would turn down the job if it was offered on a silver platter with the caveat that they couldn’t get too much accomplished because times were so good?

In fact, I think we could use more presidents who just want the job because they think they’d be a good caretaker. Coolidge and Eisenhower weren’t so bad, were they?