A nation of popularity contests

If asked to nominate the greatest Americans ever, who would you pick? \nWould you choose Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony? I certainly would.\nOr would you choose failed vice presidential candidate John Edwards, quarterback Brett Favre, accused child molester Michael Jackson and TV marriage counselor Dr. Phil McGraw? I wouldn't, but some people -- specifically half a million people who helped pick the nominees for a "100 Greatest Americans" series this summer on The Discovery Channel -- think these people deserve to go down in history as the finest our country has to offer.\nCue manic scream.\n"The 100 nominees are comprised of Americans from all walks of life with one thing in common -- their impact on the way we all live," says The Discovery Channel's Web site, which lists all the nominees from George Washington to Martha Stewart. These people, it says, "ultimately helped define what it means to be an American."\nI used to be able to stomach these so-called "greatest" lists. They're eternally subjective, but it never hurt to see what a bunch of film critics think the 100 greatest movies are, or see what Rolling Stone considers the 100 greatest guitar solos or even learn who VH1 considers the 40 greatest rock star girlfriends (still, I'm sure I couldn't name one to save my life).\nThese are all inconsequential lists that I couldn't care less about. But when you venture into something like choosing the people who most greatly influenced the United States since its 1776 inception, I can't help but take it a bit personally when Mel Gibson, Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh and Sen. Barack Obama (who's been a senator for all of 12 minutes) are on the list.\nIn fact, the nominees speak volumes about how pop-centric our culture has become. Actors outnumber presidents. There are five first ladies on the list, although of them, only Eleanor Roosevelt used the position to push forward any serious domestic agenda.\nA handful of the nominees weren't actually born in America -- which I guess is fine, except I think English-born Thomas Paine has had more of an impact on America than Austrian-born nominee Arnold Schwarzenegger. \nForty-three of the nominees are still alive, and another seven have only passed away in the last two years. It's apparently becoming harder and harder for us to remember much before 1950.\nThe most disappointing part of this is that there's really no excuse for it. The media have such an opportunity to be a tool of education that can offer explanations to the little-known historical figures that have markedly impacted America. \nWhere's music pioneer Louie Armstrong? Where are Lewis and Clark? Where's business giant John D. Rockefeller? Where's Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman elected to the U.S. House and Senate, who stood firm against McCarthyism? Where's James Madison, considered the father of the U.S. Constitution, without whom we wouldn't have much of a basis for what it means to be an American? \nWhere are Chief Justice John Marshall, the principle founder of American constitutional law, and Thurgood Marshall, the ground-breaking civil rights attorney and prominent jurist? \nAs cliché as this might sound, where are the unknown soldiers? Where are the everyday doctors, firefighters, journalists, teachers and public defenders who keep the gears of America turning? Where is the single mother who works two jobs, or the parents who put their daughter through college because they didn't get that chance?\nFame does not always equal greatness. Sadly, the end of that sentence has to be that greatness does not always equal fame.