The former senator and "Law and Order" actor Fred Thompson is being mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. Mr. Thompson has said he will keep an open mind about a 2008 campaign.

In a recent interview, he blasted the reputation of Mahatma Gandhi, the most overrated man in the 20th century and one whose name now graces a building at James Madison University.

Sen. Thompson noted that the anti-war group Code Pink had unveiled a giant paper mache model of Gandhi at one of their peace rallies, so gave this bit of history.

"During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. "The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife," he said. "They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.

"The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi’s way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won’t cut it in this country. When American’s think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein.

"Gandhi probably wouldn’t approve, but I can live with that," Thompson said.

Sen. Thompson is an actor who doesn’t need a script to be coherent. He’s intelligent without one. You can’t say that about a lot of people in Hollywood.