The July 3 issue of Time magazine is devoted to its fifth annual "Making of America" series. This year's subject is Teddy Roosevelt -- the only 20th Century president whose likeness is carved into Mt. Rushmore.

Time explores the reasons why TR was accorded a place next to Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln: his role in making the United States a global superpower, his conviction that the national government should promote the national welfare, his passion for conservation -- which led to the creation of our system of national parks, and many others.

It also notes the number of striking expressions that Roosevelt contributed to our political discourse -- including "big stick", "bully pulpit," "muckraker," "lunatic fringe," and "hat in the ring."

Yet one of Roosevelt's most eloquent (though little-known) statements was made not with words, but with a gesture. Early in his career, Roosevelt was appointed president of New York City's board of police commissioners. He soon achieved notoriety for his "midnight rambles" around town to see that the police were enforcing the law with proper zeal.

At one point during his tenure, a rather nasty character proposed to give an anti-Semitic speech at an open-air gathering in the city. Anticipating trouble, he demanded that Roosevelt provide police protection. Obligingly, TR complied -- and saw to it that every officer assigned to guard the speaker was Jewish.

Roosevelt quickly outgrew the police commission. His next step up was the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The Time article quotes a contemporary Washington Post assessment of this rising young politician: "He is a fighter, a man of indomitable pluck and energy. A field of immeasurable usefulness awaits him. Will he find it?"

There is scarcely an American alive today who does not know the answer to that question.

Have a bully Fourth of July.

"I grew up the son of a Baptist minister. From this background, I was fully exposed to not only legal behavior but moral and ethical behavior and what that means from the standpoint of leading organizations and people. I was, and am, a strong believer that one of the most satisfying things in life is to create a highly moral and ethical environment in which every individual is allowed and encouraged to realize their God-given potential. There are few things more satisfying than to see individuals reach levels of performance that they would have thought was virtually impossible for themselves."

Ken Lay
1942-2006

Ken Lay’s sudden death of a heart attack on July 5 occurred before the former Enron CEO had exhausted his appeals. For that reason, his lawyers can move to have his conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges to be struck from the record. The government would then be unable to seize his remaining assets, although said assets could still become a target for civil actions.

The legacies of corporate buccaneers were not always so tangled. When financier J.P. Morgan died in 1913, he left behind a will that read roughly as follows: “I leave my soul to my Savior. All the rest, residue and remainder of my estate I give and bequeath to my son, John.”

The terms of this terse will were widely reported by the newspapers of the day, and drew an acid comment from noted lawyer and freethinker Clarence Darrow: “The Savior got his soul and his son got his money. I should say that was one time at least when the Savior got the worst of it.”

July 13 is the day Horace Greeley coined his famous dictum, "Go West, young man." Practically everyone has heard this saying at one time or another, in its abbreviated form. But the complete quote is more snide than sage, and therefore much more interesting.

Greeley's editorial in the New York Tribune in 1865 was addressed specifically to young civil servants in Washington, D.C. who were complaining that the government didn't pay them enough, given the high cost of living in the nation's capital.

Greeley had scant sympathy for them.

He wrote: "Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country."

In the 141 years since, the food in Washington has greatly improved and the dust has been paved over. But the cost of housing is stratospheric and the morals are at least as deplorable as they ever were.

So young, ambitious political climbers still find it hard to make ends meet, and they still complain about how unfair it all is -- especially to idealistic, public-spirited youths like themselves whose only desire is to serve their country.

It is a great pity that Horace Greeley's alternative is no longer available to us. It would be better for them and us if we could still pack these aspiring politicos off to the Wild West, to dig wells, plant crops, herd cattle, lay railroad tracks, fight hostile Indians and otherwise acquire some genuine maturity along with real-world experience.

"Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country."

In honor of Bastille Day, I offer a quotation from French playwright and wit, Pierre de Beaumarchais (1732-1799).

Beaumarchais supplied guns to the Americans during our war for independence, and wrote the play, The Marriage of Figaro, which helped to undermine the ancien regime in France.

Ironically, the French Revolution landed him in prison. He had been a music master at Versailles to the daughters of Louis XV, and was therefore tainted with "royalism" in the eyes of the revolutionaries. Upon his release, he went into exile. He returned to France in 1796, where he died in poverty.

Given the facts of his career, it is not surprising that he held all politicians in contempt. He wrote: "To be a politician is but to feign ignorance of what you know well, pretend knowledge of what you totally ignorant, decline to listen to what you hear, attempt what is beyond your capacity, hide what ought to be exposed, appear profound when you are dull-witted and to justify ignoble means by claiming admirable ends."

In the words of an old French proverb, "Plus ca change ...." The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Turn the ballot box into a lottery?

The people of Arizona will have a chance to do just that in November, thanks to an initiative called the Arizona Voter Reward Act. If it’s ratified, in every subsequent general election, some lucky Arizona voter will win one million dollars just for exercising his suffrage.

Predictably, the watchdogs of civic virtue are crying foul.

Among them is Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate in Washington, D.C. Mr. Gans told the New York Times yesterday that a voter lottery would make voting “crassly commercial.”

C’mon, Mr. Gans – if your business is studying the American electorate you should know that voting has always been crassly commercial -- politicians have been buying votes since the dawn of the Republic.

Other opponents have argued that bribing people to vote won’t necessarily mean that they will make informed decisions about issues and candidates. True enough, but people already decide how to vote for all kinds of reasons, not all of them judicious or even rational.

A more serious objection is that offering money for votes – even at random – may be illegal. The jury is still out on that one.

Ironically, the odds of winning the election lottery are considerably better than winning the Powerball jackpot. Over two million people voted in Arizona’s last general election in 2004. But 1 in 2,000,000 is still a ot better chance than Powerball’s 1 in 146,107,962.

So it’s possible that a voter lottery may indeed draw more voters to the polls.

But of course, the best way to increase voter turnout wouldn’t be to offer the prospect of a fortune, but to follow the lead of another grassroots campaign and put “None of the Above” on the ballot. That would really give voters a chance to tell the politicians what they think of them.

Such a thing is unlikely to happen. But in the meantime, disgruntled voters can always follow the example of that cranky libertarian, Albert J. Nock. When election day rolled around, Nock used to write in Thomas Jefferson’s name, on the theory that if there were no decent candidates on the ballot, once could at least vote for a first-class corpse.

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

Shakespeare, Henry V

Some people are opposed to celebrating martial virtues on grounds that such celebration encourages war. There may be something to that opinion, but I believe that until everybody in the world feels the same way, there is a greater danger that if we don’t honor our warriors, we will find ourselves worsted in a conflict with people who do – and we will pay a heavy price for our ingratitude to our military.

So today I am going to reprint part of a speech given by war correspondent and author Joe Galloway to the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association. Mr. Galloway is co-author (with Lt. Gen. Hal Moore) of the book, We Were Soldiers Once … And Young.

The speech is what you might expect for a reunion of hardened combat veterans. It is brash, politically incorrect and full of rough jests and macho swagger. But it ends on a profound and heartfelt note. Mr. Galloway declares:

“For myself and all my buddies in the Infantry I say: Thanks for all the
rides in and out....especially the rides out. It is great to see you all
gathered here for this reunion. A friend of mine, Mike Norman, a former
Marine grunt....wrote a wonderful book called "These Good Men" about his
quest to find and reunite with all the survivors of his platoon from
Vietnam. He thought long and deep about why we gather as we have done this
evening and he explained it thusly:

“I now know why men who have been to war yearn to reunite. Not to tell
stories or look at old pictures. Not to laugh or weep. Comrades gather
because they long to be with the men who once acted their best.....men who
suffered and sacrificed.....who were stripped raw......right down to their
humanity. I did not pick these men. They were delivered by fate and the
military. But I know them in a way I know no other men. I have never given
anyone such trust. They were willing to guard something more precious than
my life. They would have carried my reputation.....the memory of me. It was
part of the bargain we all made.....the reason we were so willing to die
for one another.

“As long as I have memory I will think of them all.....every day. I am sure
that when I leave this world....my last thought will be of my family and my
comrades.......such good men.”

Such good men indeed.

President Bush gave a barn-burner of a speech to the NAACP last night.

Reading the text this morning, I was struck by how effectively he built one rhetorical bridge after another to connect with an audience that was at best skeptical and at worst downright hostile.

Relations between the Republican Party and the African-American community have been strained for years. Until last night, President Bush had declined five invitations in a row to speak to the NAACP’s annual convention.

Acknowledging the introduction by NAACP President Bruce Gordon, he broke the ice by saying: “Bruce is a polite guy -- I thought what he was going to say, it's about time you showed up. (Laughter and applause.) And I'm glad I did. (Applause.) See, I see this as a moment of opportunity. I have come to celebrate the heroism of the civil rights movement, and the accomplishments of the NAACP.”

The rest of the speech was in the same vein, with Mr. Bush making repeated references to working with Bruce Gordon and other leaders of the African-American community to address the concerns of black Americans.

He got applause for his references to federal grants to rebuild the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina, and his administration's efforts to improve education, strengthen social programs and fight AIDS. And especially for his pledge to sign the extension of the Voting Rights Act.

He made a subtle case for why African-Americans should vote Republican. Nearly half of all African-Americans today own their own homes. Many own their own businesses – and his administration has increased loans to African-American owned businesses by 40 percent. He also mentioned a visit he made to Canton, Mississippi, where he asked a group of black workers how many of them had their own 401(k) retirement programs. Half the hands went up. In other words, African-Americans already have a big stake in the success of the American economy, and that stake is getting bigger all the time.

Perhaps the most eloquent passage of the speech was this shrewd use of imagery:

“I've got a friend named Tony Evans. Some of you may know Tony, from Dallas, Texas. He was one time giving a sermon. I heard him speak, and I want to share with you what it was. He said -- he told a story about the man who had a crack on one of the walls in his home. So he got the plasterer to come by, and the guy plastered the wall. And about four days later, the crack reappeared. Got another plasterer in, put the plaster on the wall, and it reappeared again. He's getting frustrated. He finally called a wise fellow over. The man explained what the problem was with the cracks on the wall. He said, look, in order to solve the cracks on the wall, you have to fix the foundation.

“What I want to do is work with the NAACP to help fix the foundations of our society. We want strong families. (Applause.) We want to help people who need help. We want to help the addicted, we want to help the homeless, we want to help those who are trying to reenter society after having been incarcerated. That's what we want to do. We want to help lives be improved. (Applause.) Government can hand out money -- and we do -- but it cannot put hope in a person's heart, or a sense of purpose in a person's life. That's why I strongly support institutions of faith and community service all around our country. I believe in the neighborhood helpers and healers.”

It’s interesting that after extending five regrets, Mr. Bush should have accepted the invitation of the new NAACP President, Bruce Gordon. Gordon is the first businessman to lead the NAACP, and he had apparently done some reaching out on his own to assure Mr. Bush that he would get a fair hearing if he spoke to the convention.

Mr. Bush did – and he made the most of it. His address to the NAACP did everything a good speech could do to improve relations between the GOP and Black America.

But for all that, it was just a speech. One of the attendees, a 75-year-old retired teacher from Memphis named Alice Jeffries spoke for many when she said: "Somebody wrote him a pretty good speech, but I am still indifferent."

Mr. Bush made a good start with his speech, but it will take more than words to win over the skeptics in his audience.

“Groupthink” is a theory of how peer pressure affects communication.

Psychologist Irving Janis, a widely-recognized authority on the subject, defined groupthink as, “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”

This phenomenon, said Janis, was strikingly evident among Lyndon Johnson’s inner circle of advisors during the Vietnam war.

“The members of this group,” Janis declared, “adopted a special vocabulary for describing the Vietnam war, using terms such as body counts, armed reconnaissance, and surgical strikes, which they picked up from their military colleagues. The Vietnam policy makers, by using this professional military vocabulary, we able to avoid in their discussions with each other all direct references to human suffering and thus to form an attitude of detachment similar to that of surgeons. But although an attitude of detachment may have a functional value for those who must execute distressing operations, it makes it all too easy for policy makers to dehumanize the victims of war and to resort to destructive military solutions without considering their human consequences.”

According to Janis, other characteristics of groupthink include:

-- a shared illusion of invulnerability, which leads to an extraordinary degree of over-optimism and risk-taking;

-- manifestations of direct pressure on individuals who express disagreement with or doubt about the majority view, making it clear that their dissent is contrary to the expected behavior of loyal group members;

-- stereotyped views of enemy leaders as evil, often accompanied by the assumption that they are too weak or too stupid to deal effectively with whatever risky attempts are made to outdo them;

-- an unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the in-group, which inclines the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions; and

-- shared efforts to construct rationalizations in order to be able to ignore warnings and other forms of negative feedback, which, if taken seriously, would lead the members to reconsider the assumptions they continue to take for granted each time they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions.

Sounds a lot like the Bush White House, doesn’t it? But it could just as easily describe the in-group at Enron, an Internet chatroom of conspiracy theorists, or a group of people waiting in line to see Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth or a Michael Moore movie.

Janis maintained that one way to stop groupthink was to expose the in-group members to other points of view, either by regularly bringing in outside authorities, or appointing a group member to act as devil’s advocate.

Since speechwriters are rarely part of the inner-circle, our ability to influence policy is limited. Nevertheless, we are to some degree policymakers. The question is, what do we do when we see groupthink at work? Do we act devil’s advocates? Do we at least ask questions? Or do we exacerbate the problem by parroting the party line?

There is a common thread running through the current crop of books and commentaries on the Bush White House. It’s a deeply disturbing picture of a president who steers the ship of state by dead reckoning -- an anti-intellectual who talks only to mediocrities who agree with him; a gambler who is guided by hunches rather than facts; and, worst of all, a leader whose idea of personal loyalty includes not only blind obedience, but shielding him from anything he doesn’t want to hear

Some of the sharpest criticism of this President has come from people who served in the Reagan Administration, such as economist Bruce Bartlett. Bartlett has written a book called, Imposter: How George Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. As the title suggests, he minces no words.

Consider the following extract: “One reason Bush so often appears unprepared for press conferences and even presidential debates is that he is unprepared. He would much rather discuss issues with those he knows agree with him than suffer through a rigorous briefing that would prepare him to deal with contrary points of view or facts that don’t support his decisions.”

The same approach apparently holds true with presidential speechwriting. According to pundit Fred Barnes (whose own Bush book is a worshipful account entitled, Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush), Bush tells his writers what he wants, and they give it to him, with little or no input from policy experts before or after the actual writing.

Working one-on-one with the speaker will usually make for a more eloquent speech than one cobbled together by a committee. But without intellectual ballast and careful fact-checking, it may be nothing more than so much hot air.