Along those lines, Mr. Bennett's "The Book of Virtues" sold more than 2.4 million copies and has been translated into 12 languages. His two-volume history of the United States, "America: The Last Best Hope," is a New York Times best-seller.

Meanwhile, Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, is the latest to propose that Mr. Bennett get the vice presidential nod from the Republican presidential nominee. In her syndicated column this week, she cited Mr. Bennett's name recognition, the respect that he's shown, the breadth of his experience, "but also a comforting and practical reality for any president and any American who wants his president well-served — especially a president who may not know the ways of Washington to the extent that someone who has successfully spent decades there in various capacities would."

Indian dreams

That was former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a respected American Indian jeweler and artist, presenting "the Creation Pendant" to the National Museum of the American Indian before a VIP crowd of some 200 on Tuesday night.

The one-time Colorado senator, who quit the Democratic Party to join the GOP, was a jewelry artisan of some renown before he entered public office and won several national and international design awards. Even as a congressman and early in his Senate career, he designed several pieces, crafted at the artisan's workbench he installed in his Capitol Hill home to work out frustrations of the day.

Inside the Beltway learned yesterday that the former lawmaker used to awaken in the middle of the night to sketch whatever designs had appeared in his dreams. But those creative juices dried up during his "stressful" last decade on Capitol Hill, to the extent his dreams completely stopped.

Now, since his retirement in 2005, Mr. Campbell is dreaming again. In fact, after the Smithsonian approached him about assisting with this week's museum fundraiser, he says he was inspired during the night to create a pendant evoking the American Indian view of creation. In the morning, he fleshed out the details and set to making it.