Actor and ex-senator to advise court nominee

President Bush selected former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., a lawyer in real life and on television, to advise the eventual nominee in the anticipated Senate confirmation fight to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thompson "will guide the nominee through the confirmation process from the time that person is nominated to the Judiciary Committee meetings to the time that the nominee receives a fair vote on the floor of the Senate," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters traveling Friday with the president to a summit of world leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland.

McClellan said Thompson would be an "informal" adviser to the nominee, similar to a role filled by former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri when Clarence Thomas won narrow confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1991.