I had thought that George Allen's Senate loss to Jim Webb would spare the American electorate from endless, hokey football metaphors. Little did I know, however, that Allen would wind up advising Fred Thompson. And now Thompson's caught the bug! He makes a fourth-quarter reference at around the two-minute mark in this interview on Hannity and Colmes. The tired metaphor is soon followed, however, by what has to be the best line of this news cycle: Thompson saying " Saddle me up!" to all those conservative who have identified him as, in David Yepsen's formulation, their "horse to ride."