JFK and McCarthy
“JFK, as I note in my book, was — in theory — as ferocious an anti-communist as the great Joe McCarthy. But Kennedy was a Democrat and thus an utter incompetent when it came to execution. …
“JFK refused to provide air cover for the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs leading to their slaughter and imprisonment — and to the Cuban missile crisis. He started the Vietnam War but would not fight to win. Democrats love taking the nation to war, they just have a phobia about winning. As a consequence, the world’s greatest superpower seems to get involved in ’unwinnable wars’ only when a Democrat is president. …
“Portraits of Kathy Boudin, Che Guevara, Ted Bundy and [Joseph] Stalin are more nuanced than portraits of McCarthy. He is the only person in history for whom, apparently, there is absolutely nothing good that we can say. No nuance, no good side — just invective, fake facts, myth and anger.”
—Ann Coulter, author of “Treason,” interviewed by Jamie Glazov in Front Page at www.frontpagemag.com
Ahead of his time
“[Friedrich Hayeks] 1944 bestseller, ’The Road to Serfdom,’ helped catalyze the free-market political movement. …
“Hayek is increasingly recognized as one of the 20th century’s most profound and important theorists. …
“Hayek is fairly well-known in Britain, where he spent much of his life, because of his influence on Margaret Thatcher. In the United States, however, well-educated, intellectually curious people who nod at mentions of Max Weber, Hannah Arendt or Michel Foucault have barely heard of him.
“Politics has a lot to do with that ignorance. Hayek drew on the traditions of 18th- and 19th-century liberal thought, leading critics to dismiss him as a man of the past. He defended competitive markets against the champions of central planning, noting that supposedly ’irrational’ customs, traditions and institutions often embody the hard-won knowledge of experience. …
“But Hayek turned out to be ahead of his time, not behind it.”
—Virginia Postrel, writing on “Friedrich the Great,” Sunday in the Boston Globe
Failing to teach
“Without a doubt, the most important thing a school can do is to teach children how to read. All the rest of education depends upon the student’s ability to read. … To say that reading is the sine qua non of education is simply to state the obvious.
“Yet teaching children to read is precisely what our schools are not doing, or at least not doing very well. …
“The whole language vs. phonics debate is probably the most-controversial issue in education today. This controversy unfortunately obscures the fact that all the rigorous scientific research conducted into children’s reading over the last 40 years has proven that children need explicit phonemic awareness to become successful readers. …
“With such overwhelming and compelling evidence … why should so many education schools and school districts across the country fail to insist that teachers use phonics in the teaching of literacy? … [T]hey are willing to ignore solid research that contradicts their beloved theories, theories that keep kids from reading.”
—Terrence Moore, principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colo., writing on “The Verdict is In: Phonics is the Way to Teach Reading,” for the Ashbrook Center at www.ashbrook.org
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