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The nation's favorite past-time isn't baseball; it's criticizing public officials, a practice dating from the earliest days of the republic. George Washington was happy to leave the presidency, saying he was treated worse than a common pickpocket. Abraham Lincoln was called the "Illinois baboon." And Franklin D. Roosevelt was so hated by some that they refused to mention his name, referring to him only as "that man."

The ultimate calumny is "all politicians are crooked." Aside from the statistical unlikelihood of this being true, with nearly 700,000 elected officials in the nation, consider the implications if all of them are crooked. That would indicate democracy is unworkable, that the general public, including those who say everyone in office is crooked, is so incompetent that it can neither attract nor elect from its own ranks honest citizens to serve in public office.

Yet there are times when criticism is justified. A leading example is the stand of Democrats such as former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore on the issue of vouchers. Their children attended nonpublic schools. This implies no criticism of them for doing what they deemed to be in their children's best interests. The problem comes as they seek to deny low-income families the ability to exercise this constitutional right. This is particularly shameful since both have expressed some support for the idea.

In President Clinton's case, in October of 1990 he wrote a letter to Wisconsin State Rep. Annette "Polly" Williams supporting her proposal for a school choice program for inner-city children in Milwaukee. He wrote, "I'm concerned that the traditional Democratic party establishment has not given you more encouragement. The visionary is rarely embraced by the status quo." Unfortunately, his own vision dimmed shortly thereafter when he began his quest for the presidency and discovered the adamant opposition of teacher unions to school choice.

Sadly, an even more telling comment, which it was reported he brought up without first being asked a question, came when Al Gore said, "If I was the parent of a child who went to an inner city school that was failing...I might be for vouchers, too."

Another private school graduate, and voucher opponent, Sen. Edward Kennedy, has said Democrats seek to give a voice to the voiceless. Why not give the voiceless a voice to make education decisions for themselves. But then we wouldn't have as much big government and power for politicians would we?

The reasons Democrats backpedal on this issue can be summarized in six letters: NEA and AFT, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the two major teacher unions.

Total teacher union income, at the local, state and national level, is estimated to be $1.5 billion or more. That's not a misprint, it's billion. While opinion and exit polls indicate many of their members don't support union positions, the unions still provide huge sums of political money and turn out large numbers of campaign volunteers.

It's probably not coincidental that, like other opponents of vouchers to provide educational options for children from low-income families, the officers and staff of these unions do not have their children in schools where violence is common or dropout rates high. So, whatever their rhetoric, their actions show that they aren't concerned with what happens to other people's children as long as theirs are safe.

Not least among union volunteers are the hundreds of delegates they send to the Democratic presidential nominating convention every four years. Any Democrat seeking that nomination has a nearly impossible task in gaining it if they are opposed by more than 500 hundred delegates because of this issue.

It is nothing short of horrendous to see individuals so concerned with their political careers that they are willing to deny millions of youngsters a quality education. As a result most of these students face a future on the fringes of life because of opportunities lost due to inadequate skills.

Twice the Democratic presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson once said that "the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."

That's a standard that some obviously do not meet.

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"For all their talk of change, teachers have changed their occupation less than virtually any other major occupational group. It is almost frightening to notice how much teachers take for granted in their approach to education." p. 285, Myron Lieberman, The Future of Public Education, Chicago: University. of Chicago Press, 1960