Taking a walk through memory lane, allow me to highlight that, on December 5th, I wrote about Republican efforts to replace Franklin Roosevelt with Ronald Reagan on the dime. Although my psychic vision was blurry, I was prophetic in my ranting.

Ronald Reagan is not a saint. He was president during a very prosperous time in United States history. Bill Clinton was president during a very prosperous time in United States history. Ronald Reagan had a scandal while in office. Bill Clinton had a scandal while in office. Where's the push to idolize Clinton?

It's time to start a petition to have Clinton's face put on the $10 bill. Sure, Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in solidifying the financial foundation of the U.S., but that was during the age of agriculture. Clinton was president during the prosperous Dot-com 90's. We missed our chance to change the money during the industrial age. Let's not miss it for the information age!

Obviously, no one is pushing to idolize President Clinton on the $10 bill, but there is now an effort underway in Congress to replace Alexander Hamilton with Ronald Reagan. Consider:

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who as majority whip is the No. 2-ranking Republican in the Senate, says he'll sponsor the proposal when the time is right. Robert Stevenson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says "there could be a head of steam" behind the idea, especially right after Reagan's death.

The key to this is the timing. A few opportunists are trying to capitalize on President Reagan's death to ram legislation through Congress. They're playing on sentimentality and the realization that peer pressure will prevent a public stance against this, at least initially. I suspect "unpatriotic" will even be thrown at anyone who dares to disagree.

I don't disagree with the idea of honoring Ronald Reagan. He was president, so he deserves the memorials and remembrances. Every president deserves that respect, regardless of politics, but beyond what we've already done, we're in danger of mythologizing him in a manner unbecoming of America's abhorrence of "royalty".

Yet, politicizing the U.S. currency is a bad idea. Our paper currency is symbolic, bigger than the legacy of Ronald Reagan. In its current form, U.S. paper currency reflects the history of our nation and the men who either created our nation or saved it from self-destruction: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Benjamin Franklin. Our currency is stoic and regal. We expect that stiff upper-lip response from other countries before we expect it of ourselves, but we've installed it into our currency. We don't change our currency on a whim and that has made it the international standard of stability.

Other countries don't use paper currency to the extent of the United States. While the rest of the world has progressed to coins, achieving reduced costs and increased longevity, we cling to paper and shun efforts to switch. We put a psychic value on our currency that shouldn't be violated to impose a political agenda aiming for something just shy of presidential sainthood.

For an appropriate response to this idea, consider this statement by Ron Chernow, author Alexander Hamilton:

"I hope the country finds a suitable way to commemorate Ronald Reagan, but I don't think it would be appropriate to do it by downgrading Alexander Hamilton, who has suffered from too much historical neglect, and who is finally and belatedly starting to be appreciated by posterity," Chernow says. Even Reagan might have objected, he suggests: "Hamilton was the prophet of the capitalist system that Ronald Reagan so admired."

But here I am, standing nearly alone in thinking that currency is a symbol of the economy. Consider this statement:

"Hamilton was a nice guy and everything, but he wasn't president," says Grover Norquist, who heads the legacy project as well as an influential conservative group called Americans for Tax Reform. "As a board member of the (National Rifle Association), I can also tell you that he was a bad shot."

I know he's trying to be funny, but he's also trying to trivialize the importance of Alexander Hamilton. Even though Hamilton was never president, how else should we honor his foundation of free-market capitalism than to display his image on our currency? Without Hamilton's ideals, we'd have an economy constrained by ancient thinking and artificial control. Perhaps we'd have something akin to the Soviet economy that President Reagan so honorably opposed and defeated.

We have enough trouble preventing an ignorance of history; we mustn't politic it into obscurity.