Listen, I'm a proud Democrat. My heroes are the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King. And I don't apologize for that and never will.
Since the beginning of time, we have expected our leaders to be supermen, unlike mere mortals. We want them to be much greater than us so that we can look up to them.
I was very much a part of the civil rights era, so, of course, my fantasy was to marry some outstanding black gentleman, a leader - someone like Martin Luther King who was doing something for black people.
American culture is CEO obsessed. We celebrate the hard-charging heroes and mythologize the iconoclastic visionaries. Those people are important.
I believe you have to keep the theological standard high; the Lord said, 'Be perfect,' and the leaders have to be striving for that standard with all there is in them.
George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping?
Directly down the lawn and accross the Ellipse from the White House are those ordered, classic lines of the Jefferson Memorial and the eyes of the 19-foot statue that gaze directly into the White House, a reminder to any of us who might occupy that mansion of the quality of mind and generosity of heart that once abided there and has been so rarely seen there again.
It's the Platonic philosophy in The Republic that philosophers should lead the country.
But no matter how many times we re-rank the presidents, in another 200 years, the top presidents will still be Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson, because they defined what a president is. They are the idea, and you can't be better than the idea.
