The first time I heard the rumor, I thought it was a joke.

Haley Barbour for president?

I never quite understood how he rose to become chairman of the Republican Party.

But president of the United States?

Where are America's leaders? Where are they hiding? Why are endlessly recycling the same old political retreads?

Ever since getting elected governor of Mississippi, sources close to Barbour say, he's been thinking about the possibility of going for the big prize.

I guess it's natural and understandable. As chairman of the GOP, Barbour was in the limelight, constantly on television and getting a national platform as a spokesman for his party. Now he has "proved himself" as a politician by getting elected to the governorship in his home state.

There's an old political axiom that every candidate who wins a school-board election in America suddenly starts dreaming about becoming president of the United States.

And that's what Barbour is dreaming about right now.

After all, he's won more than a school board race. He's won a southern governorship. More than a few presidents have made that leap in the past.

He is seeing himself as the next Jimmy Carter or the next Bill Clinton – a small-state southerner who emerges as a dark horse.

Let's hope it's just a dream.

Because this man is unfit for high office.

Why?

Barbour may be governor of Mississippi today. But what got him there was his role as one of the highest-priced lobbyists in the country.

Normally, politicians retire to become lobbyists. Barbour is trying to turn that career path around.

But the disqualifier for Barbour is his history as a lobbyist for the Mexican government. We don't need another president beholden to Mexico. This will undoubtedly be the legacy of George W. Bush. When the inevitable terrorist attackers infiltrate our country by crossing the Mexican border unscathed, Bush will be blamed. And he will deserve America's wrath for his reckless border policies.

Barbour would continue those policies. That's what he was paid big bucks to do.

His work on behalf of cross-border trucking helped lure even more U.S. jobs south of the border.

He is perhaps the least likely candidate to restore sanity to our border policies and immigration laws.

He's bought and paid for.

One dupe for Vicente Fox has been enough.

It's time for America to find leadership that will put our nation's interest first – that will protect American jobs and the American way of life.

I can scarcely imagine a less attractive candidate for the Republicans to consider in 2008 than Haley Barbour. But he's well-connected. He's well-funded. He has scratched a lot of backs in the party establishment over the years.

It could happen.

It might be Haley Barbour's pipedream – or it could be America's national nightmare.

Can the United States of America do no better than this?

Can the Republican Party do no better than this?

If American is going to remain the land of the free and the home of the brave, we're going to need vital new leadership with vision and charisma. We will need new ideas and bold decisiveness. We will need principle over politics. We will need courage and convictions.

Hillary Clinton is going to be the candidate to beat in 2008.

I, for one, do not want to be faced with a choice of Hillary vs. Haley.

That would be making the Democrats' job too easy.