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Laura? She went to school Lynne? She'd reform schooling PHILADELPHIA - 'Yup," barked the old ambassador cozied up beside me in the walnut-paneled box of the chairman of the Republican National Committee on Monday night. "If they can steal our ideas and move to the right, well why the hell can't we steal theirs and move to the left?" Republicans are so abashed these days, so sensitive to criticism, that even the chilliest of cold warriors feels he has to spin school vouchers and "leaving no child behind" as left-wing ideas before they can be accepted. About a mile beneath us, a parade of children of colour bounced and shimmered, the occasional hick mayor out of Texas moved the proceedings along, and when the senior Bushes arrived, just about everyone in the box was moved to sniffles, especially pink-suited Mary Matalin, histrionics in full display. Below us, J.C. Watts, the charismatic black congressman and convention chair, and all the senior women officials in the Republican National Committee made smooth appearances appealing for various understandings and tolerances. The ambassador pointed out that there were NO women and NO blacks in the power structure of the Democratic National Committee. "We're the party of Lincoln," he said, in between confiding mouth-watering secrets from the Rockefeller, Nixon and Reagan eras. But the soft focus quickly became runny marshmallow when Laura Bush appeared in a pale green suit, her brown bob and shy cornflower eyes gleaming. The quintessential prairie schoolteacher, you could pick up Laura Bush and plop her down anywhere in the 19th century and she would go to work with a vengeance, building a sod house, digging the community well, running Sunday School, starting the first library in her kitchen pantry, while keeping everyone's spirits high. Laura is George's secret weapon. A quiet introvert, she is a small-town Texas girl with an entirely ordinary childhood, a stay- at-home mom who gave up her librarian career when her children were born, and as first lady of Texas made literacy, her mother-in-law's passion, her area of concern. She started the Texas Book Festival, worked hard for breast cancer awareness, and is at the heart of her husband's pledge to have every child in America reading by Grade 3. The Anti-Hillary, she is so genuine, so sweet and good, so uninterested in having attention placed upon her, that the only recourse of the ordinary human is to lay down your arms, listen to what she has to say, then get on her side. If the Bushes win, she will doubtless become one of the best-loved first ladies in recent history. "I think there's really something about west Texas", she said to Redbook magazine this year, "the big sky, no trees, the beautiful sunsets, the stars at night -- it's very liberating. We could ride everywhere on our bicycles, and we could walk all over town. You played outside until it got dark and your mother called you." She repeated this story on Monday night. "We had family, community, and a vast sense of possibility, these were our core principles, and they will not alter with the winds of change, polls, fame or policy." This is the America that the Bushes want to restore. But just as behind George is the man who voted against Nelson Mandela's release and against abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, behind Laura's sweetness stands Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne, intellectual and cultural warrior of the first water. When you listen to soft-focus Bush speeches on education, remember that what is talked about is "coding" for a battle that is as hard- fought as any above-ground war. And, arguably, just as important. It was Lynne Cheney, an American Enterprise Fellow and former Chair of National Endowment for the Humanities, who took aim against Goals 2000, a multi-cultural teaching agenda that forced on every elementary school child a radical version of American history. The 271-page guideline, begun by Cheney, and radically altered under Clinton, at the University of California, places an overwhelming emphasis on the historical perspectives and experiences of women, minorities, economic classes and various liberal political movements, and focus on concepts of racism and "oppression" at home and the country's alleged "imperialism" and reckless violence abroad. "These standards turned into a travesty ... into a very dishonest and distorted view of our history," said Cheney in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece at the time the guideline was unveiled. "It says the story of our past is a story of failure and oppression [while] it ignores another story of unmatched principles of political equality and justice ... Students will be walking away with no knowledge of what makes our civilization something to be proud of." World history and geography subsequently received the same treatment, and while the states were not compelled to adopt the national standards, if they wanted federal funds, they had to comply. In terms of subject emphasis, the comprehensive guidelines either require or recommend the Ku Klux Klan as a topic of discussion 17 different times, the late senator Joseph McCarthy or McCarthyism 19 times and the Native American "Declaration of Sentiments" nine times, while, amazingly, mentioning the Gettysburg Address only once and the Constitutional Convention not at all.The report also advances as historical fact a number of propositions that are considered highly debatable. Pinning equal or even disproportionate blame on the United States for the events of the Cold War, the guidelines declare simply, "The swordplay of the Soviet Union and the United States ... led to the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well as the Berlin airlift, Cuban missile crisis, American intervention in many parts of the world, a huge investment in scientific research, and environmental damage that will take generations to rectify." Needless to say, quite a few people in the U.S. disagree with these sentiments, and wriggling out of such "national standards" is one of the key reasons that Laura repeats that "George believes in limited government, that local people make the best decisions for their schools and communities and that all laws and policies should support strong families." Lynne Cheney, eyes moist, nodded and smiled at Laura Bush on Monday night. The Republicans have found a kind sweet face to mask the fierce and rigorous discipline of a party on the move to restore Reagan's shining city on a hill.

© 2004 Elizabeth Nickson The material at this website is available only for personal non-commercial purposes, and it may not be reproduced without permission.