Texas Board of Education's bid for righteous history

IT WAS A good week, sort of, for Thomas Jefferson. It was a horrendous week for James Madison and Ted Kennedy as well as the school kids in Texas. It came about as a group of demonic religious conservatives - Christians, they call themselves - managed to change what public school students can and cannot read in their textbooks. Book-burner Savanarola never had it so good as he was led to the stake.

After a long and divisive contest to obliterate Jefferson from textbooks (he believed, as you know, in separation of church and state), he managed to barely make the cut and get a mention in the revisionists new textbooks. Madison and Kennedy weren't so fortunate as the Texas Board of Education voted 9-5 to brainwash the young folks with an upgrade of Joe McCarthy, never mind that he was such a heavy drinker that it drove him to his grave. Ah, Phyllis Schlafly, at age 85, is back in print, too. Occasionally known as the conservatives' godmother, she made it to the top of their list back in the early 1960s in the Goldwater-LBJ campaign, offering the voters a shred of wisdom in her authored "A Choice not an Echo," which turned out to be no more than a mosquito bite for LBJ.

The new curriculum standards, which become effective in 2012-13, deal with the old right-wing standbys that the revisionsists insist need to play a greater role in a young person's education: anti-climate change and anti-separation of church and state. The shopping list is much longer, but you get the point.

You'd think that by now, some of these folks on the school board would be a lot more concerned that Texas ranks 49th in verbal SAT scores and 46th in average math scores. But that isn't the way the game is played these days in the Lone Star State. Gov. Rick Perry, who says some loony things from time to time, is strongly supportive of the state board's action. That isn't true of the 1,200 or so college historians who say the new standards distort the historical record.

There are many Texans, of course, who are embarrassed by the board's action - but not enough of them to vote out the religitics who are driving the bus. The vote, the papers down there noted, was along party lines and the Republicans prevailed. Not only that, they prevailed with confidence that a Christian God is on their side. As board member Cynthia Dunbar said in her opening prayer for the historic board meeting, America is a "Christian land governed by Christian principles." (Dunbar, a lawyer, has complained that the current educational standards are "unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion."

Someday the book burners may decide to live by the principles they pretend to uphold. But it's a long shot.

Now there are no leaders on Capitol Hill

SEN. TED KENNEDY'S uniquely towering stature in Congress on behalf of the nation has challenged some of his political colleagues to find words on how he might be replaced to move forward with his powerful commitment. That, unfortunately, is a foolish pursuit. He can't be replaced. It not only says much about his own worthiness as a humane figure amid the bruising political brawl of Washington, but also of the barren ground on Capitol Hill these days. Where to turn for leadership today amid the invective that passes itself off as loyal opposition? To John McCain? Harry Reid? Orrin Hatch? Mitch McConnell? Max Baucus? Put the best of their meager talents together and you won't find a hint of leadership. Only arid politicians who are unable to see beyond the trees.

Kennedy went about his work with determined interest and - yes it can be said in a town where pettiness and well-oiled self-interest rule - class. Faultless? Of course not. We all know that story from his past. Certainly he was partisan - a liberal Democrat to the end. But petty. self-consciously in need to award himself merit badges as a crass political operative with his next campaign solely in mind - never. Forever the optimist about what's possible but yet undelivered in America - always and always.

Even in death, his mystique is undiminished as some of his colleagues are proposing to attach his name to a health care reform bill that he long fought for in hopes that it will spur action. Who else could claim that honor on the Senate floor? And at what Town Hall meeting?

I have a photograph of Kennedy taken as I trailed behind him and the late United Rubber Workers chief Peter Bommarito at one of the Akron rubber plants. Although he was a wealthy prince of a family dynasty, Kennedy fervently supported the welfare of the workers and promised to work for them in whatever way he could help. That was back in the 1970s, To no one's surprise, he kept his word. For his long service to the nation, it could be said that he never lost sight of the forest while others dallied at the base of a tree.

There will be a void.

If it sounds like madness....

IN HER book, A Distant Mirror, a voluminous account of the troubled 14th Century, Barbara Tuchman writes of the collapse of French King Charles VI's mind - insanity. "Madness," she keenly observes, "was familiar in the Middle Ages in all its varieties."

In some respects, I find that consoling to those of us who have been forced to witness a total collapse of some of those weaker links who are trying to infuse the public with the evils of public health insurance. Since President Obama took office and continued to raise a subject that carried him through his election campaign, his opponents are all but resorting to the Medieval culprits of witchcraft and sorcery to deceive the public.

The vanguard of opposition includes some Medicare-eligible (!) Republican and Democratic senators who could care less about the wisdom of single payer health care than they do about putting Obama in his place. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the witless Iowa Republican, has been changing his position on health care reform by the hour, first scaring his town hall audience that you can throw your grandma under a bus, or wherever, with a provision in the bill that Sarah Palin narrowed down with the simplicity that even a moose could appreciate - death panel. Then Grassley sort of recanted by lying, asserting that it was the Obama crowd that was guilty of overplaying the "death panel" card while he was trying to play with a full deck. Finally, he insisted that when he spoke to his town hall, he was merely repeating Obama's words and meant no harm by it. The man insults himself and all mindfully alert 75-year-olds every time he sets out to explain what he last said by contradicting himself. .

Next comes Sen. Max Baucus, the conservative Montana Democrat who has a death lock on his Senate Finance Committee that's working on a bill. But he may want to check his state's latest polls. Not encouraging for his line of work.

I was beginning to enjoy some relief from the absence of Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut's hybrid contribution of a man for all seasons - Democrat, McCain supporter, Independent. A moralistic whiner, Joe was back on the tube Sunday maintaining that although health care is a serious moral concern, Obama-style health care reform should wait for a fix until after the recession, whenever that may be. But he could change his mind tomorrow.

Finally, there were John McCain and Orrin Hatch, two septuagenarians who say a health-care bill would be ready to pass if Sen. Ted kennedy were in charge of its fate. Minor problem: Back in the 90s, when Kennedy did offer a plan, McCain and Hatch voted against it.

It's maddening. Clearly not all of the farmers are in their dells these days. Back in the days of Mad King Charles all sorts of quacks came forward with their miracle potions to restore his mind. Today, the opposite is true. It's the quacks who are in need of the miracle potions.