Jim Hightower

I must admit that the seven-year reign of Bush & Company makes me yearn for the years of Ronald Reagan, when the term "conservative" merely meant right wing, rather than full-tilt, bull-goose loopy.

Still, let's not get our national memory so warped that we put 'the gipper" on a pedestal, as today's far-right ideologs want to do.

Bad enough that they keep tryin' ta stick Reagan's name on public facilities apparently oblivious to the irony of naming these things for a guy who claimed to hate government.

But now they're pushing to put his mug on Mt. Rushmore!