A Time to Be 'Citizens, Not Spectators'

Two short months ago, John Bridgeland drove President Bush's agenda as the influential director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. These days, he is paid to talk about Aristotle.

"Nicomachean Ethics," he explains. He also has been dabbling in Sophocles, Cicero, Alexis de Tocqueville and Thomas Paine.

But Bridgeland is no dilettante. As head of Bush's new USA Freedom Corps initiative, he has been charged with launching what is probably the most unusual and innovative of the Bush administration's efforts. Its goal sounds utopian, particularly for an administration devoted to limited government: finding a role for the feds in the creation of human happiness, and helping Americans live what the ancient philosophers called "the good life."