"If I was the President..."

"...things would sure be different around here." C'mon, tell me you haven't thought about it. At least a little bit. Maybe there are even some of us who think about it a little too much. Be that as it may, let's play a game of pretend. The premise is simple: You wake up tomorrow as the President of the United States. Your party controls both the Senate and the House. Your allies in both of those bodies are selfless, loyal patriots and courageous leaders (I told you we were pretending). You have political capital and the support of the public. The New York Times circulation is below 12,000 (and CNN viewership is even lower). You're surrounded by smart people and you don't have to worry about being re-elected; you can get your laws passed and your ideas enacted. What would you do? Here's a to-do list of legacy-builders for the first week of my administration.... Establish a foreign policy that will comfort our friends and soften some stools in Syria. We will engage, aid and enter treaties only with peaceful democracies. And we won't use Jimmy Carter's definition of "democracy," either. We'll be out of the nation-building business. Instead, we'll employ a global policy of decapitation. Leaders of governments that foment or export terror, WMDs and/or drugs will think twice about those things when they know they are apt to catch a Tomahawk or two in their hot tub tonight (see Moammar al-Qadhafi). And we're not going to replace the hot tub. The U.S. Air Force will play whack-a-mole with any rogue nation's bad leaders until a good one pops up. It goes without saying, this foreign policy will require us to pull out of the UN by Monday afternoon. A reasonable 90-day eviction period will have those terrorists, freaks and criminals out of Manhattan and in a new-but-not-air-conditioned, Halliburton-built pole-building headquarters in Darfur by Halloween. The closest those people will get to America again will be Gitmo.... Produce a two-page Tax Code a public school student could read. We'll have a one-rate national sales tax on all goods and services except food, medicine and essential health care. You'll pay your tax as you spend your money. No more social-engineering through tax breaks and deductions that divide Americans and enable gaming of the system. You want to run a church? Fine. Do it with your own dough and pay taxes like everyone else. The rest of us aren't going to pay for it. No breaks if you buy a house or get married or have kids or abort kids. No breaks if you run a "not-for-profit" business or a business that makes a profit (or not). The IRS will be a phone bank of ten terse old ladies answering toll-free calls for the most-stupid-among-us until they can finally figure it out. "Gee, it sounds like I'll have more control of what I earn," you say, "But even rich guys like George Soros and Michael Moore will be able to keep and control a lot more of their money, too." Sure... but that's alright. We'll take care of them with the new and improved House Un-American Activities Committee.... Produce public school students who can read a two-page Tax Code. The successful American school child is a more endangered species than the snail darter or the spotted owl. The conspicuous failure of our schools is more than a mere disgrace. It's a threat to the future of the republic. Lip-service to student non-achievement and empty promises to pour more dollars-that-don't-exist into long-failed schools aren't working. I will issue an Executive Order nationalizing the lower-performing half of all school districts. The national teachers' union, too. When they squeal and strike, I'll fire them... just like Dutch did to the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981. Competent teachers could apply for high-paid merit-based teaching positions and keep their jobs as long as they produce successful students. Discipline will return to the classroom and teaching will be easier as we deal with behavior problems. Corporal punishment will be back. And consistently-disruptive kids will be placed under "house arrest," chained to at least one parent or guardian inside the nearest Chuck E. Cheese until attitudes change. Then they can go back to class. A high degree of emphasis will be placed upon English (particularly reading comprehension and writing), History (American and World) and Math. Dodge ball will be a requirement at every grade level. As they experience success in school, more kids will want to learn more. And we won't let money get in their way. Every academically-qualified student will be automatically eligible for a no-interest loan to cover the cost of higher education. This program will be funded by eliminating federal spending on PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts and less than half the pork Robert "KKK" Byrd sends home to West Virginia every year.... Well, there you have the highlights of my first week in Washington. The heavy lifting ought to be done by late Thursday afternoon. I might have the Polish Ambassador over for dinner that night. Friday, I'll take Marine One up to Camp David for a photo op of me walking, deep-in-thought, on a wooded trail with a golden retriever. Then I'll probably shoot some sporting clays with Scalia, sign an order to drill for oil on Barbra Streisand's estate and review some preliminary sketches of something I call "Mt. Rushmore done right." Saturday, I'll skip the radio address to the nation. No one ever listens to it anyway. Instead, I'm having Condi, the Cheneys and the Joint Chiefs up for steaks and whiskey. We'll smoke some cigars, tell French military jokes and figure out how to tighten up our borders without steaming the Mexicans or honkin'-off the Hosers. Sunday, I'll do a little light reading, maybe work on the old memoirs and lay out the schedule for "Week Two." There's still a lot to be done....