ONCE UPON A TIME, OUR LEADERS HAD IDEAS

HAMILTON, Madison, Franklin, Washington, Adams and Jefferson had ideas. They
didn't have any polls. Didn't have any focus groups. Never had the advantage
of a photo op. Never interrupted a trip to Asia by stopping off in Alaska,
like Reagan, so they could have their pictures taken saying ``Hi there!'' to
the Pope.

Madison, Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton had ideology.

Didn't have brilliant campaign consultants warning them that ideology was
poison.

Had nobody at all to tell them: ``Lay off the ideas, Jamie. Keep the old lip
buttoned about ideology, Ben, George, John, Tom and Alex.''

Didn't have any television instructors to make them get their teeth capped,
hair dyed, lips painted, cheeks rouged.

All they had were these ideas they'd picked up from --

- -- reading!

Reading books!

Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison were different
from Clinton, Gingrich, Gore, Lott.

Different from Bush, Quayle and Reagan, too.

Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison had ideas.

They knew philosophy. They had ideology. They had ideas about how government
should work.

Unlike Clinton, Gingrich, Gore and Lott, Bush, Quayle and Reagan, they
didn't have speechwriters to help them drive audiences half-mad with joy by
uttering vacuities like ``Read my lips'' and ``It's morning in America'' and
``I feel your pain.''

When they needed a tough piece of writing done they had to decide for
themselves what they wanted to say, then lean over Jefferson's shoulder to
make sure he was saying it the way they wanted it said.

They were familiar with the best writing of the 18th century. All those
French intellectuals. And John Locke!

Locke with those ideas about mankind's most precious rights: life, liberty
and property. They loved property. They were men of property, but they knew
that ``life, liberty and property'' detracted from the nobility of their own
ideas, which were more daring than Locke's.

They didn't have extravagantly paid image advisers to warn them that
unpropertied people were not likely to be enthusiastic about dying for
property rights.

But they had common sense. They changed ``property'' to ``pursuit of
happiness.''

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Franklin were free to
have ideas because they had no pollsters.

Clinton, Gingrich, Gore and Lott, Bush, Quayle and Reagan did not need to
have ideas.

When they needed to know what people wanted them to say they asked a
pollster to find out, then they told people what the pollster said people
wanted them to say.

Having no need of ideas, Clinton, Gingrich, Gore and Lott, Bush, Quayle and
Reagan had no ideas. If chided for their idealessness, they said, ``It will
play in Peoria.''

They had consultants, writers, lawyers, image creators, hairdressers, press
agents, public relations experts, spin doctors, haberdashery advisers, court
jesters and cosmetic dentists.

They had Air Force One. They could move all over the world so fast that they
had no time to have ideas, even if their advisers had permitted them to have
ideas.

Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin and Washington had no Air
Force One.

Didn't even have U.S. Cavalry Horse One. Still they traveled far and slow.

Primitive was the manner of their conveyance. This compelled them to look
closely at places they traversed and to talk to a great variety of humanity.

It gave them a great deal of time to think. They had ideas.

With many others nearly as remarkable they constituted one of the most
extraordinary bands of men in world political history.

Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, Washington and Adams -- they had ideas.

Clinton, Gingrich, Gore and Lott, Bush, Quayle and Reagan? Lamentation will
do no good. It is not given to every generation to have a golden age.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett