Fred during his brief press availability in Texas yesterday, courtesy video over at IMAO:

Fred on McCain: “He is a tough, hard fighter and if he says he’s going to remain in it, I take him at his word, and as long as he’s in the race, he’s going to remain formidable.”

Asked about a Dick Morris column about his son taking PAC money:

“I haven’t seen that column. I heard he would be writing one. It’s a column that’s been written three or four different times. I have the benefit now of being apparently the main target of the Democratic National Committee. (laughter) Michael Moore has taken a couple of shots at me. Hillary Clinton has taken a couple of shots at me. This is kind of a matter of dredging up some material. As best I can, the allegation is that my son lobbied on the state level. Not on the federal level, or not anything that I had anything to do with. I suppose he pleads guilty to that.”

Q: The allegation is that he was paid and didn’t have to do any real work–

“That last part of course, is totally false. He handled our PAC, he had to make the decisions with it, he had to do all the administrative work. He had to absorb administrative expenses. It’s a common practice. And I’d rather he did it, somebody I trust, somebody whose judgment I trust as much as anybody else.”

Q: We’ve got a saying here in Texas, you can’t be a little bit pregnant.

A: We’ve got that saying in Tennessee, too.

Q: This sure looks like a presidential campaign.

A: “Well, people are just coming out to see me because they want to. I suppose that they’ve paid attention, and they know that I’m very serious about considering it, and I’ll be making a final decision on it in the not too distant future. But the formality of it is something else again, and you know, all things in good time. This is considered, historically, to be kinda early.

People have announced in times past in October, November. I think on one occasion a candidate announced next January. But because a couple people moved their primaries up a little bit, all the politicians jumped in about a year earlier and started spending money. They said you had to raise $100 million his calendar year in order to compete. So I was halfway into the year and hadn’t raised anything…”

And then the woman screaming “YOU WERE A LOBBYIST FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS YOU’RE NOT A REAL CONSERVATIVE WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WORLD TRADE CENTER IT WAS AN INSIDE JOB WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING ME I CAN GET OUT OF MY OWN ACCORD GET OFF OF ME GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG” interrupts.

UPDATE: Greg was there, and offers his account: “Overall, I was favorably impressed with how he handled the crowd, the press, and the Ron PauLunatic who attempted to disrupt the event… She was permitted to ask her first question — and Fred Thompson tried to answer it. He had to ask her to stop talking in order to be able to do so. Once he was done, staff attempted to ask her to leave. She whined about being touched, and ignored their attempts to remove her from an event in a private terminal booked by the campaign (which was therefore a private venue, not a public forum).” He also provides the picture:

It’s official. If you’re going to run for president, then at some point, you have to wear a cowboy hat.