Former Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee made his first major speech in Washington yesterday as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. Perhaps the sudden change of weather down here in the Carolinas from sunny to showery has left me in a soggy mood, but I must say that this passage from Ford’s remarks rubbed me the wrong way:

“We must not forget what sets America apart as the greatest experiment in human history,” he said. “All of us have the same dreams, and every one of us should have the chance to reach them.”

Is this really what sets America apart? How about a constitutional form of government that respects certain unalienable rights? After all, our Founders did not believe that all of us have the same dreams. They knew and reflected on the fact that Americans had all sorts of different, perhaps even competing aspirations for themselves, their families, and their communities. Think Yankee Puritans vs. Southern Anglicans. Think Philadelphia shopkeepers and Scotch-Irish backwoodsman. The Founders sought to erect political and social institutions to accommodate these conflicting visions and allow individuals to pursue whatever ends they wished consistent with others’ right to do the same.

I guess Ford isn’t sufficiently appreciative of diversity. Other than that, I wish him well in his perhaps-doomed effort to make 2007 an “Ideas Primary” rather than a money primary for the presidential race.