Happy Presidents Day, everyone! Hope you have the day off like we do!

Let's celebrate by saying who was the greatest president and why. (The White House site has a nice little history of the office if you want to thumb through it for inspiration.)

We're going to be boring and go with Lincoln for keeping the country together and all, but we know you'll have more creative picks.

So, who's your favorite?

A St. Louis town is contemplating a bill that would ban swearing, drinking contests, table dancing and other typical drunken behavior from bars. City officials claim crowds in downtown St. Charles get a little too rowdy and hard to control after a night out. So to combat the problem, cuss words and dancing might become illegal.

Burning Question Number One:

How will banning filthy language in bars help to control an overly drunk crowd of people? Besides that, isn't it an unnecessary violation of the first amendment to tell people they can't say a four letter word in an adult atmosphere? Saying bad words doesn't harm anyone. They just shouldn't be said in front of young children, or to degrade a race of people. Other than that, anyone should be allowed to say whatever word they wish to say.

Burning Question Number Two:

No table dancing? Really? Table dancing doesn't hurt anyone! In fact, I encourage table dancing! Nothing generates love and happiness in a bar more than a woman moving the beat of great music. In fact, if people want to get on top of a table to express themselves in a drunken rumba, I say kudos to them!

Here's a Thought:

If a crowd of people get too rowdy after a night of drinking, why not limit how much alcohol they can have rather than banning cuss words and dancing? I don't think there should be a three drink maximum. But bartenders should be able to say no to customers when they're getting out of hand. Banning drinking games in bars might actually be a good idea for this particular St. Louis town. Making sure bartenders don't keep giving people drinks while they're falling on the floor from over-intoxication could be another good idea.

Let's focus of real problems people! Free speech and dancing is what makes this country great. Let's not snatch it away from our fun-loving counterparts.

The Lakota Indians, descendants of Crazy Horse and and Sitting Bull, have officially withdrawn from the treaties they had with the United States, the AFP is reporting, meaning they have declared themselves a new nation formally separate from America.

The article quotes Indian rights activist Russell Means as saying: "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area [Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming] that encompasses our country are free to join us."

It also points out that the new Lakota country plans to issue its own passports, driving licenses and tax plan (that is, there will be no taxes). We went to the Lakota Freedom Delegation to find out more about their plans, but the site appears to have been downed by too much traffic. Here's the link if you want to try it.

President Bush said he would "sadly accept" White House press secretary Tony Snow's resignation. No reason was given, but Snow has been in treatment for cancer, and he's said taking the job was a financial burden (it pays only $168,000 a year). Katie-Couric-esque Dana Perino will replace him.

Rove, Gonzales, Snow . . . it's getting to be like that nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians." You know, the one that ends " And then there were none."

I haven't seen the new Underdog movie yet, despite the fact that my kids keep asking me if they can see it. "Can we see it?" they say. "Please? Please? Please? Please?" You get the idea.

But now, there's a real-life Underdog. Perry, an eight-year old mastiff in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was instrumental in saving the lives of her owners after a house fire broke out. Perry made noise, got the humans out of bed, then went back into the house (possibly to save more people), and is now suffering lung damage and pneumonia as a result of smoke inhalation.

Her condition is precarious, partly because her owners have run out of money to care for her. In a world where people massed around Barbaro, the ill-fated race horse, I wonder if they'll rally for Perry. Donations, according to the piece, can be mailed or dropped off to Emergency Veterinary Clinic, 300 Gosling Road, Portsmouth, NH 03801.

The stock market continues to soar, hitting the high-water mark of 13,600 this week. Let's remember that the market plunged to 7,500 in the aftermath of the tech bubble and the catastrophe of 9/11. The Nasdaq and S & P numbers are also looking good.

Bush has shepherded this economy back on track. His tax cuts have provided a powerful incentive for the engine of American creativity and productivity to get going and stay going. Unemployment is low, unlike the 10 percent rate that many European countries endure. Interest rates remain very reasonable. And with the help of a weak dollar America is now exporting more to the rest of the world. Of course there are trouble spots, as with any economy, but when I look at my monthly stock reports I'm glad I voted twice for Bush.

Clinton too had a strong economy, but he was coasting on the success of Reagan. Except for trying to take over the private health care system, which failed, Clinton didn't really have an economic policy. His main achievement was to do nothing. In fact, the most significant measures he took were to stop the reckless tax and spend policies of his own cabinet officials like labor secretary Robert Reich. Reich's book was titled "Locked in the Cabinet." Clinton deserves credit for throwing away the key.

Bush's critics continue to pummel him on Iraq. But politics has a way of coming back to domestic pocketbook issues. The Democratic presidential candidates all have imaginative ways to carve up the pie: this is for health care and this is for the poor and this is to fight global warming. They forget how the pie got so large in the first place. Bush deserves some of the credit for that.

I haven't yet read historian Douglas Brinkley's new edited compilation of Reagan's private diaries, although I'm looking forward to it. Brinkley is an old-fashioned historian, which is to say that he's a liberal who tries to be fair. He wrote a biography of Jimmy Carter some years ago that I found a bit fawning. But it's a mark of his professionalism that he can now take up the subject of Reagan without the typical condescension and prejudice that we too often find among contemporary historians.

From the early reports, it seems that Brinkley has unearthed some juicy material on the Reagan family. What a crew! From what I know Nancy is no angel, but then she was always Reagan's angel. His attitude toward her even here seems to be purely uxorious. The Reagan offspring, however, are another matter.

The diaries portray Ron Reagan as a spoiled brat, and I can confirm this from a brief personal experience. I saw Ron Jr. at a radio station in Seattle a few months ago. I went up to him and affably introduced myself, and told him that I had written an intellectual biography of his father. He looked at me as if to say, "So?" The fellow has absolutely no manners. I moved on to do my interview with another host.