Every once in a while (and don't tell me you haven't done this
yourself) I allow my mind to drift off into
fantasy-land for a brief period of time, where I begin to envision what
this great nation of ours would be
like if the most qualified and intelligent people around actually held
positions of authority in our government. Earlier today I lapsed into
that exact mental state, so I decided to take a few notes while
I was there, and I came up with the following list of folks who, in my
humble opinion, would best be suited to run the Executive branch in
2008.

Keep in mind, however, that some of the individuals mentioned in this
article were added to it several hours after my daydreaming session had
ended, because, at
the time I couldn't remember the titles of some of our nation's less
well-known
Cabinet posts. I trust
you'll forgive me if a few of my choices are somewhat less
impressive
than
the rest. After all, who would YOU pick to be the Secretary of
Agriculture?

By any means, I now present to you my personal fantasy picks
for President, Vice President, and the various Cabinet Secretaries of
the United States. After each person listed below I've included a
simple paragraph outlining their respective qualifications... except
for the bottom five individuals, whom I'd never heard of
before today, but who appear to be pretty decent public servants
nonetheless.
Of course, you don't have to take my word for that. You can always
click on the links I've placed below each of their names, which should
provide you with all the pertinent biographical information you may
require.

President - Newt
Gingrich
http://www.newt.org/backpage.asp?art=15
Of all the leading conservative politicians in America, I can think of
no one who is more intelligent, articulate, knowledgeable, or
serious-minded than former House Speaker Gingrich. Since leaving office
in 1999, Mr.
Gingrich has written many articles, policy papers, and books on a wide
variety of subjects, and few politicians can match this former history
professor's speech-making abilities. If there is any
Republican in America who is more
hated by leftists than George W. Bush, it's Newt... and for
good reason; when compared to him, every liberal in Washington D.C.
sounds
like a babbling nitwit.

Vice President - Bill
Owens
http://www.colorado.gov/governor/biography.html
Simply put, this popular, two-term, Colorado Governor, former state
House member,
former state Senator, and former state Treasurer is one of the most
effective elected officials in the nation today. He holds a Masters
degree in
public administration from the University of Texas, and is considered
an expert on Russian affairs. Known for his fiscal
responsibility, predilection for lowering taxes, and an unwavering
determination to improve the public school system, Mr. Owens is widely
regarded as one of the rising stars of the Republican party.

Attorney General - Mark
Levin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Levin
What can I say about this man that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and
practically every well-informed conservative in America hasn't already
said? This accomplished author, Constitutional Law expert, and talk
radio host isn't called "The Great One" for nothing. Known for his
brilliant legal mind, as well as an acerbic wit and abhorrence for
judicial activism, Mark Levin, who currently heads the Landmark Legal
Foundation, is uniquely qualified to head the U.S.
Department of Justice... and if you don't believe me, just ask him!

Secretary Of Defense - General
John Abizaid
http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/abizaid_bio.html
If hands-on leadership and over three decades of experience fighting
for our country are what you're looking for in a Defense Department
head, you need look no further than the current U.S. CentCom Commander.
As a West Point graduate and four-star Army General, whose service
decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal (with Oak
Leaf Cluster), the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit
(with 5 Oak Leaf Clusters), the Bronze Star Medal, the Defense
Meritorious Service Medal, and the Army Commendation Medal (with 2 Oak
Leaf Clusters), John Abizaid stands out as one of the finest military
leaders of our time.

Secretary Of State - Dinesh D'Souza
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/more/about.html
Any American who has ever heard this man deliver a speech on the
virtues of this, his adoptive country, would be hard pressed to
walk away from the event feeling anything but pride. A native of
Mumbai, India, Dinesh moved to the
U. S. as a youth, and is now a naturalized American citizen. He is
a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth College, a former Senior Policy
Analyst for the Reagan White House, a former Editor of various
political affairs magazines, a Research Fellow at the Hoover
Institution, a former Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and
a best-selling author of - among other books - 'What's So Great about
America' and 'The End of Racism '.

Secretary Of Homeland Security - David McIntyre
http://homelandsecurity.tamu.edu/staff/director/dr-david-h-mcintyre.html
Dr. McIntyre is a retired Army Colonel who holds a BS in Engineering
from West Point, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University
of Maryland. He is the former Deputy Director of the ANSER Institute
for Homeland Security, and currently heads the Integrative Center for
Homeland Security at Texas A&M University. He has taught
national security/homeland security strategy at senior levels of
government for
nearly two decades, has worked in the office of the Army Chief of Staff
in Washington, DC, and lectured at the Maxwell School of National
Security Studies, the National War College, the Naval War College, and
George Washington University.

Secretary Of The Treasury - Thomas
Sowell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
Aside from Alan Greenspan and the recently deceased Milton Friedman, no
American economist
is better known or more well-respected than Thomas Sowell, whose
syndicated
columns are published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, and
Capitalism Magazine. He holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard
College,
an A.M. in Economics from Columbia University,
and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, were he
studied under Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler. He has
written 5 books on economics, as well as two dozen more on various
other topics, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution.

Secretary Of Education - William
Bennett
http://www.bennettmornings.com/agnosticchart?charttype=minichart&chartID=22&formatID=1&useMiniChartID=true&destinationpage=/pg/jsp/general/biography.jsp
Dr. Bennett is a former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education,
as well as former Director of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy under President George H. W. Bush. He holds a Law degree from
Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from the
University of Texas at Austin. He is a best-selling book author and
highly valued speaker on the topics of American culture and morality,
among others. He believes in competency tests for educators,
performance-based pay, ending tenure, allowing knowledgeable
professionals with no formal education training to teach, and providing
parents with greater school choices.

Secretary Of Energy - Pete
Domenici
http://domenici.senate.gov/committees/enrcommittee.cfm
With 33 years of continuous Senatorial service under his belt, Pete
Domenici holds the record for the longest tenure of any New Mexican
elected to the upper house of the U.S. Congress, wherein he recently
cast
his 13,000th vote. He is a former junior high school mathematics
teacher, lawyer, and author of two books on the subject of nuclear
power. He currently serves as the Chairman of both the Senate Committee
on Energy & Natural Resources and the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Energy & Water Development, and is co-sponsor of
the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Secretary Of Health And Human Services - Phyllis
Schlafly
http://www.eagleforum.org/misc/bio.html
Radical feminists HATE Phyllis, who headed a successful grassroots
campaign to prevent passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.
She believed that such an amendment would lead to negative cultural
shifts which would inevitably result in things like homosexual marriage
and government-funded abortions. Mrs. Schlafly is a lawyer who has
authored 21 books on subjects ranging from child abuse to judicial
tyranny, and has testified before 50 Congressional and State
Legislative committees on Constitutional, family, and national defense
issues. At 81 years of age, she is as spry as most 20-year-olds, giving
daily radio commentaries, writing a widely published syndicated column,
running a national volunteer organization known as the Eagle Forum,
publishing a monthly newsletter, and debating cultural issues on
college campuses across the country.

Secretary Of Commerce - Jeb
Bush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeb_Bush
While he may be best known as the younger brother of the President, Jeb
is no Billy Carter. In 1973 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a
Bachelor's degree in Latin American studies from the University of
Texas at Austin, later taking a job with the Texas Commerce Bank.
Several years later he moved to Florida, where he worked as a real
estate developer and consultant, and eventually a political lobbyist.
Today he is the Governor of Florida, with a long and distinguished
record of accomplishments which include maintaining a 3.0 unemployment
rate in his state, and cutting taxes every year since 1998. Often
characterized as brilliant, he is also a man of high principles, and
his hard work and determination have transformed Florida into one of
the most successful states in the union.

Secretary Of Labor - Elizabeth Dole
http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=MNC80774
Senator Dole is the wife of former Senator and former Republican
Presidential nominee Bob Dole, and she currently Chairs the National
Republican Senatorial Committee. She was Deputy Assistant to President
Nixon for Consumer Affairs, later being appointed to the Federal Trade
Commission. Afterward, she became the nation's
first female Secretary of Transportation under the Reagan
Administration, and then Secretary of Labor under the first Bush
Administration. Prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate, she headed
the American Red Cross, and holds a Masters degree in Education and
Government, as well as a Law degree from Harvard University.

Secretary Of Veterans Affairs - James Kimber
http://savethesoldiers.com/j/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1575&Itemid=180


Secretary Of The Interior - Thomas
Easterly
http://www.in.gov/idem/about/commissioner/index.html

Secretary Of Agriculture - Leonard
Blackham
http://www.ag.state.ut.us/admin/blackhambio.html

Secretary Of Transportation - Michael
Meyer
http://www.cqgrd.gatech.edu/about/meyer.php

Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development - Tino
Hernandez
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/about/message_from_chairman.shtml

A Few Parting
Thoughts
After having proofread
everything
I've written above, it strikes me
that
there are only two female members of my White House "dream team", and
most of the male members are white. I suppose it's possible that if
race or
sex
had been on my mind
at the time I was formulating my list, I might have been tempted to
drop a couple of those caucasian fellows and replace them with men or
women of some other race... but I doubt it. Call me unconventional, but
physical characteristics usually don't enter into my
thought processes when I'm considering a person's qualifications
for an administrative job, and once I've made a decision on such an
issue,
I require a better reason for changing my mind than simply satisfying
the whims of
the pc-police.

Since race-baiters and
left-wing ideologues do not
intimidate me, anyone who feels the need to call me a racist,
sexist, or
some other 'ist' just because this article doesn't pass their personal
diversity test, is hereby encouraged to email me at his or her earliest
convenience. However,
be forewarned that my response to you may not be exactly pleasant. You
see, it's precisely
because I'm not a bigot
that I've selected the
people I have to run my imaginary government, despite the fact that
every ACLU fan out
there will probably consider me to be more hateful than Hitler for not
creating a mock Cabinet
that "looks like America." If you ask me, choosing political leaders
who
"stand for America" is far more important than keeping up appearances,
and anyone who can't
appreciate that is
truly prejudiced.

Edward L. Daley is the owner of the Daley Times-Post -
http://www.times-post.com