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William John Bennett (born July 3, 1943) is an American conservative pundit, politician, and political theorist. He served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He also held the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (or "Drug Czar") under George H. W. Bush.

Bennett was born in Brooklyn but later moved to Washington, D.C., where he attended Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from Williams College and went on to get a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Political Philosophy. He also has a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

From 1976 to 1981 he was the executive director of the National Humanities Center, a private research facility in North Carolina. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan appointed him to head the National Endowment for the Humanities, where he served until Reagan appointed him Secretary of Education in 1985. It was in 1986 that Bennett switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Bennett resigned from this post in 1988, and later that year was appointed to the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by President George H. W. Bush.

He is host of the daily radio show called Bennett’s Morning in America. I cannot listen to anything else after checking him out for about a week. He raises the bar of conversation, political interchange, and son-of-gun…..he makes sense.

He is not perfect and he’ll be the first to admit it.

I just finished his America: The Last Best Hope, Volume 1. This is probably the best “in a nutshell” version of American history WITHOUT the revisionist perspective. I’ll give you an example. Rather than hammering America for slavery and talking about reparations, he says…and I paraphrase…we have seem to forgotten that America blazed the trail for ENDING slavery in the world. Slavery had gone on for thousand of years. It was NOT invented by America as liberals would have you believe. It was tried here on this soil and IT DIDN’T WORK. In the light of thousands of years of world history, slavery had its debut and demise here in less than a century. Bondage and freedom cannot co-exist.

I can’t wait to dive into Volume 2 and also the American Patriots Almanac.

On a daily basis, he hammers away at the irrational logic of the current administration and the creeping and creepy socialism that is being thrust on us much faster than we ever thought.

He does make it pretty clear that he is a conservative FIRST, and a republican second. Yes, there is a difference. The next election will be a culturally conservative election that will be powered by conservative media and web 2.0. My prediction is that the 2012 election will be cultural and not political. Bill Bennett is one of those leading that charge.

Why I go to a barbershop … and not a national salon chain.

I know the beauty industry. Mom was a cosmetologist. Dad was a barber...and still is. The bar for haircuts was raised pretty high in my house as I grew up and after I left for college.  I couldn’t stand the fact that I had to get my haircut by someone other than my barber father. I remember going months without a haircut and driving home from college to upstate New York six hours knowing that I would get a good haircut from Dad. For a short time, I worked in the esthetics industry and had access to some of the best stylists in the country...but still...no one gave a haircut like Dad.

I remember hanging out at the barbershop on Saturdays when I was a kid. The smells were only the smells a barbershop could have...and not those a woman's salon could have. I used to practically gag at the smells in a salon. Perms, straighteners, dyes, bleaches. Yuck.

The barbershop would have the occasional cigar smoker, which I really didn’t mind too much because all the Italian guys I knew smoked cigars and it was a familiar smell to me. The smell of cigars made me feel safe as a kid because real men smoked cigars and nobody messed with real men.

There was the smell of the hot Barabasol lather from the hot lather machine, the steamy hot towels, that blue liquid that disinfected combs and blades, and of course the French Pinaud aftershave in the tall skinny bottle on the shelf in front of the mirror. The smell of talcum powder as the barber brushed the hair clippings off your forehead, neck, and face. You knew to close your eyes and keep your mouth shut.

There were the sounds that you could only hear from a barbershop and not a salon. The sound of the lather machine, the sound of slip-slap slip-slap as the barber sharpened up the straight razor on the leather strap that hung off the arm of each barber chair. The sound of the barber chair hydraulics as he pumped up the height of the chair. The sound of the broom as a barber swept up the hair in between each customer. The sound of the bell that jingled every time a customer came through the door.

Then sight of men lined up in chairs reading newspapers, National Geographic, and LIFE magazine. The black and white photos on the walls of people like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Jerry Vale, and others of that genre of music. Some of them even had autographs of the singers on them.

They didn’t need an OPEN sign on the door, because when the barber pole outside the shop was lit up and spinning, you knew it was open. There may have been a black and white TV with rabbit ears on. It could have been a sports game or an old movie. There was talking back and forth between all the men and the barbers. The guy in the chair had to rely on the mirror to see who was talking because if he turned his head, he might lose an ear. Blades were flying all over the place in those days. God forbid you get nicked. Then the barber would put this thing called a steptic pencil on the cut which stopped the bleeding, but not without stinging like hell first. And it was never the barbers fault….even if it really was his fault. It was because you moved. Period. End of story. You never argue with a guy who has a super sharp razor to your throat.

The barbers pretty much gave the same haircut to everyone in those days unless it was a crew cut or a flat-top. The lines were perfect. You smelled good. You felt good. You itched like hell for the rest of the day, but you didn’t mind. He always applied a little greasy stuff, VO5, or spray in your hair. These were the days before gel or mouse.

You paid and the barber pressed down two buttons on the old cash register and the drawer opened with a ring of the bell. You never saw the price of the haircut on the register. He just went through the motions of opening the register. If there wasn’t enough change in the drawer, he always pulled a wad out of this pocket. The thickest wad of dough I had ever seen. He peeled off a few bills and then you gave one or two back to him as a tip. You both knew what the protocol was, but you went through the motions anyways. He thanked you. And you always came back a month later.

I remember riding my bike to the shop at 6pm on a Saturday when the shop closed. My Dad would then ride the bike and I would be sitting on the handlebars as we drove back home. He couldn’t wait to sit down and relax after being on his feet all day long.

My folks are in Florida now. Mom only cuts Dads hair now. Dad still cuts all the neighbors hair in the garage. They line up in lawn chairs, shoot the breeze, drink homemade wine and leave my Dad more money than he ever made when he was working in a barbershop. The chair is there, the mirror is there, the strap is there, the shelf with various products is there. And most importantly, Dad is there. 73 years old and still cutting hair. He listens to woes, stories about lay-offs, grown children that never became doctors or lawyers, cancer, mistresses, and then somehow makes them feel better about their sins, struggles, and dreams… no matter how old they are. The barber is a pretty special guy.

You can take a New York barber and stick him in a garage in Florida and you still feel like you’re in a barbershop. That only leads me to believe that it has more to do with the barber, than the shop. It’s the barber that creates that experience. No man, other my doctor, can come that close to me. Other than God, there is no counselor, no priest, or magistrate that hears the things my barber hears. There’s no other man that I can take my own boys to and say “…clean him up a little”, and then thank him and give him money. Barbers do one really cool thing for me...for a moment, I get a glimpse of what my boys will look like as men. He makes them look like little men. He parts their hair perfectly. He uses a combination of scissors and clippers, not just clippers like at the salons. The barber understands #2 on the sides and a 4 on the top…but he doesn’t like that. That’s what a male customer says after he’s gone to a chain salon for years. The barber sympathizes with you, but doesn’t judge you. It gives him an idea of what you want. The good barber knows what looks best on you. He knows what cut looks good with the shape of your face, by how you dress, and the work you do. The good barber takes mental notes on all those things. Trust the barber. Just let him do his thing on you. It will look good.

The barber is a pretty special guy.  I can’t get to Florida to Dad’s garage as much as I’d like, but you can bet that when I need a haircut, I don’t go to a "haircut factory"…I go to a barbershop.