Last night's debate in South Carolina has produced two story-lines from the laptops of the national press corps: (1) McCain unscathed, and (2) Fred Thompson is back. The former seems true enough. The latter sort of misses the point.

Fred Thompson can't be back. He hasn't been anywhere. He announced his candidacy three months ago and promptly...disappeared. Which raised the question: What in the world does Fred Thompson hope to accomplish with his non-campaign campaign? Put another way, at what point does losing to Ron Paul become too humiliating?

Happily enough, politics is a dynamic business. Things change. And by the time Fred Thompson arrived on the stage in South Carolina last night, circumstances had conspired to make him useful. His task: take out the preacher man on behalf of his friend Sen. John McCain and on behalf of the national Republican Party. In return, well, let's just say this: there would be a "quid" for the "quo."

The urgency of the task only recently dawned on national Republicans. After New Hampshire, the Beltway Boyos surveyed the terrain and imagined the worst of all possible worlds for their businesses: Governor Huckabee might do well in Michigan, win South Carolina and then polish off Giuliani in Florida. If that happened, they'd be devalued and their party's prospects in the fall would be diminished. If your business is access, you need to be able to make the case that you "have" someone to sell access to. Huckabee, to say the least, is not their guy.

Thompson understood the dynamics perfectly and proceeded to immediately make himself useful. He went after Huckabee as a "liberal" on economic issues and a "liberal" on foreign policy. Heaven forefend. And he did a nice job of skewering Ed Rollins in the process, thus endearing himself further to the Beltway Boyos.

Thompson will never be the Republican presidential nominee, except in some brokered convention fantasy that only Mary Matalin might believe. If he wants to be a player or even (just maybe) the party's vice presidential nominee, he need only serve as the instrument of Huckabee's demise. His pointless campaign now has a purpose.