MISSOURI WATCH: DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT FOR ABRIEF VISIT?

Sometimes it's good for columnists to forget about the transitory news-of-the-day or the politician-of-the-year and concentrate on getting acquainted with the persons who are kind enough, or sympathetic enough, to read what is written on the newspaper page. So, for the next few minutes, let's just visit. If you have the time, that is.

You know, it seems to me that those who write for a living reach a point in their careers in which they feel that whatever is on their minds, what news is most disturbing to them, or what they consider imperative to impart to their readers will not always coincide with what the reader believes is important. Oh, I know, columnists try to address events that are topical, throwing in an occasional heart-warming story at Christmastime, a stern warning about the duties of citizenship at election time and delivering serious sermons about the virtues of economy when it's time to consider annual budgets in the state capital, and I guess we do that rather well.

But there are times when I feel as if what I'm writing coincides with what the readers experience more by accident than design. After all, I'm a regular guest in your home, courtesy of some 60 newspapers around Missouri, but I'm constantly wondering whether I'm also a guest in your mind as your eyes take in the words printed under the column heading.

I will admit, it's a very warm and fuzzy feeling to than design. After all be welcomed, even as I realize my words are not always joyfully received, and I would venture there have been times when you felt like taking my printed words and letting your dog have his way with them. Don't blame you at all. And to be honest, there have been times when I would have done the job myself.

I suspect far too many of us sermonizers have far too large an ego to be cured through surgical removal, for it's a malady that comes from interviewing "important" persons, a standard practice in the news game. Unfortunately it's also one that calls for the interviewer to make an assessment of the worth, ability and integrity of the transient parade of men and women who, for a variety of unknown reasons, have achieved success in governance at the expense of far greater numbers of actors who have failed. Politics is the one vocation that will never suffer from a lack of applicants, since most of us, whether we will admit it or not, believe we can do a much better job than the one being turned in by the chimpanzees we chose at the last election. Let's face it, we're all qualified to sit in judgment of our fellowman and we can all make decisions around the counseling table, with just as good odds we'll be as right as the guy with all the political muscle.

There are times when I'm convinced I've interviewed the wrong person to gather material for this twice-a-week visit with readers. Instead of asking governors, legislators, budget directors and assorted bureaucrats, it would be better if I asked fewer governors and more of the governed. This is, after all, a representative government, in which each of us is supposed to have an equal voice in determining just how we are governed and who gets to do it. It seldom works that way, and that's not surprising. After all, when an ordinary citizen is elevated to an important office that will guide the conduct of his fellow citizens, he's just bound to feel important. That's human nature, and even kings and bishops and politicians -- especially kings and bishops and politicians -- are human.

As faultlessly as we like to think our Founding Fathers handled their job of organizing America's political system, the truth is they forgot one detail. They forgot to devise some system whereby the governed had an opportunity to express their views on how things are going with the affairs of state at regular, systematic and scheduled intervals. They caught a glimpse of this pure democracy in a few New England colonies, where town meetings were regularly held to listen to the views of the entire constituent congregation. It was kind of like going to church where the subject was not about God but about the Federalists and the anti-Federalists and King George and his appointed minions. I'm not so sure that such practices didn't form the basis of strength for the Revolution of 1776.

Just imagine how you would feel if, during a town meeting, you had an opportunity to tell the governor of Missouri or the state legislator from your district how you felt about a particular subject that was near and dear to your heart. Imagine having the chance to tell Mel Carnahan that you don't like his proposals to spend more of your money on a convicted felon than a college student or that you don't appreciate John Ashcroft visiting early presidential primary states more than his own. Imagine how great it would feel to tell an elected official that his conduct disappointed you and, in your opinion, said politician should be removed from office at the very next election. Imagine the exhilaration you would feel, for you would have experienced a sense of the essence the Founding Fathers were seeking to instill in our republic more than two centuries ago. I suspect you would feel, for the first time in a long time, that your views counted for something, that you were actually taking part in something that closely resembles the forums of early Greece and Rome, only much better.

If I have painted an illusion, I'm sorry. Some would say that the problems facing us as a people and as a nation are far more complex than simply listening to the views of the governed. Maybe they're right, for there's no doubt we have a world of complex dilemmas facing us these days, but whether we recognize it or not, they seem to have their inception in our inability to address them in democratic fashion, to discuss and debate them and hopefully to resolve them. Let's try it!

I'm glad we had this brief visit. I feel better already.

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