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When I want keen insight into today's political scene, I rush right over to E.J. Dionne Jr.
Bwahaaaaaaaaa!
E.J. is at his arrogant, elitist, and condescending best today, beginning with the title "A Down Home Lesson for the GOP?"
The lesson is supposed to be that Australia's conservative prime
minister, John Howard, has held onto power for a decade because he
tricks even liberals (Like Dionne) into wanting stuff like teaching
history the old way.
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Last week, Howard organized a "history summit" to call attention to
the decline of Australian history as a subject in high schools. In most
states here, history has been subsumed within (and thus displaced by) a
broader social studies curriculum focused on "studies of society and
the environment."
"I think we have taught history as some kind of
fragmented stew of moods and events," Howard declared, "rather than
some kind of proper narrative."
This is the sort of cultural and
educational fight familiar to Americans. My gut is with those who see
history as a distinct subject. Wherever we live, we should know our
country's national story.
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Excuse me, but this smacks of Time magazine's revelation, a few years
back, that "Men and Women are different." Besides, that liberals
would promote an honest telling of history is laughable. When
ex-history professor Newt Gingrich began a series of instruction on our
nation's founding - a History directly opposed to that which liberal icons like Howard Zinn peddle - and broadcast it on GOPAC television, democrats
responded with - you guessed it - fabricated charges of illegality, and
ethics violations (all subsequently proved false). Any way,
after this false start, Dionne's commentary dissolves into an olio of
liberal claptrap that I defy anybody to make sense of. How
is it that the New York Times has not stolen this guy for its Op-Ed page?
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