Fred Thompson quits race for White House

The actor Fred Thompson, who has enjoyed playing the President of the United States on screen (in the 2005 film, Last Best Chance), has decided that trying to do it for real is too much like hard work. Thompson, star of the long-running TV series Law and Order, has thrown in the towel and withdrawn from the Republican race for presidential candidate after a string of mediocre finishes in early primaries.

"I have withdrawn my candidacy... I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort," he said in a short statement. The decision follows the Republican primary in South Carolina, a state which he had said he needed to win, but where, in the event, he came only third.

FIRST POSTED JANUARY 23, 2008