POLITICS: FROM CONFUCIUS TO GERGE W. BUSH

KENNETT, Mo. -- As it steps forward to assume the reins of authority and power, every new government provides assurances to its followers that it is prepared to offer wise leadership, which carries the implication that it will seek only the best for those it will govern.

This promise is almost as old as mankind itself and can be traced as far back as Confucius (551-479 B.C.) who devised the time-honored plan of countless world leaders who followed him.

The latest to follow in lock-step is America's newest political leader and our next president, George W. Bush.

To history's kings, rulers, presidents and monarchs, the wisdom of Confucius was simple and direct. It included just three basic steps:

1. Govern for the benefit of the people,

2. Reduce taxes,

3. Recruit "superior men" of any origin.

Our next president, as he awaits his inauguration, has already adopted the wisdom of the ancient Chinese philosopher-political leader. So have virtually all American chief executives extending as far back as George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

There has never been a time when a new American president has failed to promise and pledge to enhance the benefits of "the people," even as observers vainly searched their records for a single reference of this goal in previous campaigns or records of earlier service.

Even the nation's most strident ideologues on the right have put forth the same Confucian strategy for our next president, even if many have often redefined citizen needs while pursuing political pathologies designed to bring down the dreaded opposition.

It would be both informative and interesting to know how much time and energy have been expended during the past eight years to matters dealing not with the public's welfare but with the political destruction of the Clinton administration. Denials of such myopic political paranoia would fill the atmosphere, but the public remains properly repelled by this emphasis on partisan paranoia.

Why worry about such wasted motion on our part at this moment, the warriors ask, when we are at long last seeing the end of the unclean and unholy William Jefferson Clinton? The past is not all pornographic prologue now that Bill and Hillary are preparing to leave 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and already the air is cleaner and fresher and brighter, the ideologues declare gleefully.

Almost from the day the Clintons first set foot in the White House, the nation has been treated to far-ranging accusations of malfeasance, misfeasance and criminal conspiracy on the part of the president, his wife and many of their closest friends and associates. Good, honest and courageous men and women have been vilified beyond recent memory, all for the sake of partisans now urging Americans to forget intemperance for the sake of national unity.

Indeed, the end is not in sight, with law-license revocation hearings hanging in the balance at the close of Clinton's term. One wonders how anyone summons the strength to sustain needed strength to withstand the venom that has literally filled America's capital to record contamination levels.

Those who have played major roles in pursuing and prosecuting the Clintons for the past eight years now call for a nationwide shift of attention from the sins of the incumbent to the goals of his successor. We are promised that our new leader will, following the precepts of Confucius, govern so as to meet the needs of all citizens. Following the Confucianist path, our new leader promises he will lower taxes and expand his administration to include and involve opposition members.

Can it be, then, that we are witnessing a new age of moderation and bipartisanship in our land?

We are, the new millennium Confucians promise, if our enemies will simply forgive and forget our actions during the Clinton years so that all may pursue our newly shared goal of meeting the needs of the governed.

And why not?

Can America's leaders have any higher goal?

Perhaps we can even persuade our third branch of government to join in while putting aside their obvious political biases for a broader, more egalitarian approach to the federal Constitution and its laws.

At the end of our new-spirit parade, we should position those who discuss national events with shovels and brooms: writers, commentators, columnists, editorialists and political historians, an unfortunate number of whom are without regard to truth or the near-sanctity of the office of the nation's presidency.

What a parade this would be, bereft of partisan spite, political strife, philosophical claptrap and unseemly special interests.

Given the residence of the winner on Nov. 7, this ceremonial trek should start in Texas, detour through Florida, if only for old time's sake, and wind up at the White House in Washington. The band has promised to play "Hail to the Chief." and perhaps the Rev. Jerry Falwell could be persuaded to conclude the ceremony with a brief assurance that God is a forgiving Republican.

If citizens would like to take part in the parade, they should register with Secretary Kathleen Harris, State Capitol, Tallahassee, Fla. She'll check her records to determine if you are eligible to take part.

~Jack Stapleton is editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.