Flunking the Citizenship Test

Anyone who's ever seen Jay Leno do one of his "Jaywalking" segments on NBC, locating average Americans and asking them factual questions on street corners, knows there are far too many Americans who know next to nothing about just about everything. They can't name our first president or don't even know what the phrase "Founding Fathers" means. Ask them to name our current vice president and watch the brain waves flat line.

Newsweek magazine recently announced its disgust after it offered the government's official citizenship test (the one we require immigrants to pass before being naturalized) to 1,000 Americans. Thirty-eight percent of the sample failed. Newsweek worried in its headline: "The country's future is imperiled by our ignorance."

The magazine was careful enough to report that civic ignorance isn't new. One study found the yearly shifts in civic knowledge since World War II have averaged out to "slightly under 1 percent." But it worried that today's interconnected world is "becoming more and more inhospitable to incurious know-nothings — like us."

It's easy to get discouraged with the results. Sixty-five percent couldn't figure out that the Constitution was penned and adopted at the Constitutional Convention; 63 couldn't identify how many justices were on the Supreme Court (nine); and 73 percent couldn't identify that communism was what we opposed in the Cold War.

Current national leaders aren't so well known: 29 percent could not identify the current vice president (Joe Biden) and twice that percentage didn't identify the Speaker of the House (John Boehner).

Let's start with the positive angle here. It's a terrific idea to examine whether native-born citizens can pass the citizenship test and an astonishing embarrassment to learn how many can't. Some public schools have used the citizenship test as a social-studies project in civic knowledge. A daring principal could make passage of the citizenship test a high-school graduation requirement. Promoting better civic and historical knowledge is an important cause.

But this leads to a follow-up question for Newsweek and its media colleagues: Do journalists see building civic knowledge as an important part of their job?

A few years ago, when pollsters asked Americans to name two of Snow White's Seven Dwarfs and two of the nine U.S. SupremeCourt justices, 77 percent of Americans polled were able to identify two dwarfs, while only 24 percent could name two Supreme Court justices.

But how often are the justices discussed on news programs, where ostensibly, Americans receive their civic education? A quick Nexis search for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to take one example, finds her mentioned less than once a month each on ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening newscasts in 2010: 10 on ABC, eight on NBC, six on CBS. That's just mentions, not stories.

Or take "communism." The word was mentioned just 19 times on the Big Three morning and evening newscasts in 2010 (eight on ABC, seven on CBS, four on NBC). That's despite Communist parties still ruling China, North Korea and Cuba, among others.

Perhaps the news media think they don't have time or space to waste on high-school basics about civics. Newsweek turns to liberal experts to find agreeable culprits for civic ignorance, such as "our reliance on market-driven programming rather than public broadcasting," which would "foster greater knowledge" than commercial news.

But guess what? Playing our Nexis game, Ginsburg was only mentioned six times and the word communism was only mentioned seven times on "PBS NewsHour" in all of 2010. Someone wouldn't necessarily get a better test score from Jim Lehrer than from Katie Couric.

The liberals at Newsweek also blamed America's decentralized or federalist system of government. We have civic ignorance, they report, since unlike Europeans and their majority-rule parliamentary systems, Americans have to contend with voting for "subnational" officials. Likewise, American schools are "decentralized" and managed by states, without a central national curriculum.

How ironic that Newsweek would find Americans ignorant for not knowing the authors of the Federalist Papers even as they blame federalism for our civic stupidity.

Naturally, the magazine also blamed America for having "one of the highest levels of income inequality in the developed world, with the top 400 households raking in more money than the bottom 60 percent combined." Those darn successful people. So if we more aggressively redistributed wealth, Newsweek suggests, more people would know who the vice president is.

There are more direct culprits that could correct this ignorance: teachers, parents and, yes, journalists, for not emphasizing this "rote knowledge" of the facts around which we organize our government and remember our history.

By the way, Newsweek only mentioned Ginsburg three times in 2010.

By L.  Brent Bozell  III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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Education and the value on education in America is at an all time low.  Add to this the purposeful dumbing down of America by the Progressive Movement which includes brainwashing our children, re-writing history and textbooks,  Political Correctness and the co-opting of religion using social justice.  America will only survive as the same country we grew up in if parents stand-up and get involved in the education of their children and if Americans themselves re-educate themselves in history and current events and then share what they learn with others.

Will Ignorance Lead to a Second Obama Term?

There is a wonderful quote that has been making its way around the internet over the past year. It apparently was translated from an article published in the Czech Republic newspaper Prager Zeitung last April and reads as follows:

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency...Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."

The first time I saw this, the Tea Party enthusiasm was in full force and Republicans were on their way to taking back the House and gaining ground in the Senate. Optimism prevailed and the light at the end of the tunnel began to appear. But as Barack Obama announces his reelection bid and the GOP has yet to produce a strong, viable candidate for President, it would be prudent to question the present mindset of the electorate who got the country and the world into the current mess and whether it is possible that "the confederacy of fools" will elect him to a second term.

When Obama won in 2008, I wrote an article for AT in which I analyzed the various reasons that people had for voting for a person who was clearly incompetent, unprepared, unpatriotic, and basically void of any substance other than his own ego and disdain for American exceptionalism. The five categories of Obama voters included (i) individuals suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, (ii) followers with a mob mentality of assuming that if everyone liked the guy, he must be wonderful, (iii) socialists, (iv) people with racial guilt looking for a post-racial America, and (v) those suffering from simple ignorance due to a lack of intellectual curiosity to understand the man who would be king.

Now, with over half of Obama's term complete, the only relevant categories of Obama supporters are those falling under items (iii) and (v) -- Americans who reside on the far left of the political spectrum and those who remain completely ignorant about world affairs, economics, and the person who is the current leader of the free world. The far left will continue to support and vote for Obama no matter how many flip flops he makes on closing Gitmo, military trials for terrorists, intervention in Mideast revolutions, and other policies that raise their ire.

However, in the face of a dishonest and complicit mainstream media, it is up to all thinking Americans to make efforts to educate themselves, their neighbors, friends, colleagues, and family as to the dangers of four more years of Obama as President. For while the world can withstand four years of incompetence in the White House, eight years will likely result in a world forever changed, with America reduced to mediocrity and powerlessness, Islamic fundamentalism on an unimpeded rise to triumph over the West, and liberty and freedom replaced in many more parts of the world by tyranny and human rights abuses.

While many Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 have woken up to the fact that it was a colossal mistake, there remain too many Americans who simply do not understand just how incompetent and ideologically driven his administration is. There are too many people who would rather watch Joy Behar's ineffectual interview with Helen Thomas, who continue to watch MSNBC's idiotic news programs hosted by the likes of Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, or who consider Jon Stewart and Bill Maher reliable sources of news. There are also those who read The New York Times without any critical analysis of its editorial board's disconnect from reality and publisher's extreme bias resulting in disingenuous reporting.

And then there is the matter of Israel and the Jewish vote. While having little impact in terms of numerical votes, American Jews' continued monetary support of Obama makes explaining the irrationality of that voting bloc extremely difficult. While Israel was not a voting issue for the majority of American Jews in 2008, it may very well become one in 2012 -- and not necessarily because American Jews have suddenly woken up to the fact that the existential threat to Israel is increasing daily under Obama. I believe that Jews overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008 due to their willful ignorance and lack of interest in his predictable contempt for Israel. Since that time however, Soros-led initiatives such as J Street have led to many American Jews, who have not taken the time to investigate these organizations' missions, to grow contemptuous of Israel and supportive of the least Israel-friendly President since the creation of the Jewish nation.

American Jews are not only living on the left side of lala land, they are blinded by their progressive passions. How else can one explain supporting a President who has spent the better part of the past two and a half years weakening the only Mideast democracy and US ally, the world's only Jewish nation, and a beacon of hope and freedom that welcomes people of all faiths, especially Jews. How else to explain a rabbi who stands before a congregation of thousands and calls Israel "an occupying entity," 900 rabbis who say amen as Obama explains that "We are God's partners in matters of life and death" and orders them to sell his socialist policies to the nation, and hundreds of rabbis who ran a Wall Street Journal ad criticizing Glenn Beck and FoxNews notwithstanding that both clearly stand with Israel.

Just as Richard Goldstone allowed the UN Human Rights Commission to use his name and status as a Jew to demonize Israel in the Goldstone Report, the American Jewish community has allowed Obama to turn them into a bunch of useful idiots. And this combination of stupidity and ideology does not bode well for the future of the Jewish homeland.

So as Obama enters into campaign mode (not that he has ever left campaign mode) and pivots right by agreeing to try KSM in a military court, appearing to care about human rights abuses by striking Libya, and pretending to work with Republicans on a balanced budget, the American people need to wake up. They need to focus on the extremists making decisions and policies in Obama's administration, beginning with Samantha Power and ending with Eric Holder; they need to remember the bipartisanship and dirty tricks used to pass ObamaCare; and they need to recall his abandonment of the freedom fighters in Honduras and Iran, while supporting the "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al Qaeda rebels in Libya.

And while they are at it, the U.S. electorate might want to take one more look at Obama swaggering up to the podium for his campaign and post-election speeches and question the intelligence of a man who cannot speak without a telepromptor, who refuses to disclose his college transcripts (let alone his birth certificate), who chose Cairo for his most famous reach-out to a people who hate America, and who appears to care more about enjoying the life of Riley than he does about the free world. If Obama represents the level of intelligence of the American people, then I fear our Republic will not survive the "multitude of fools" who may very well hand the prince a second term.

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Source:  The American Thinker  By Lauri B. Regan

Obama Needs to Brush up on Middle East History

For a man of his impressive educational credentials, Barack Obama has sometimes shown a surprising ignorance of history.

During the 2008 campaign, when challenged on his pledge to meet with foreign tyrants without preconditions, he said that presidents from Franklin Roosevelt on had met with leaders of enemy nations. Funny thing, but in my books on World War II, I haven't been able to find the chapters on the Roosevelt-Hitler and Roosevelt-Tojo summits. In his speech in the Tiergarten last summer, he told us that the Berlin Wall came down thanks to "a world that stands as one." My recollection is that the world was standing as two, and one side wanted to keep the wall up.

The good news is that in his speech to "the Muslim world" in Cairo last week, Obama showed a surer grasp of the past. The bad news is that he still has more to learn.

Obama got some important things right and pounded them home to his audience. Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. "Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant and hateful." Al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11. "These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with." America's bond with Israel is "unbreakable." Good, though perhaps undercut later in the speech. "The richness of religious diversity must be upheld — whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt." Very good, though lacking any reference to Saudi Arabia, perhaps because the list of sects not tolerated would be too long.

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," Obama said, "one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect." The unfortunate implication is that the United States did not respect Muslims before his inauguration. But then he went on to make points that George W. Bush made repeatedly in the seven years after Sept. 11.

"America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam." "All people yearn for certain things," including free speech, democracy, the rule of law, "the freedom to live as you choose." He also echoed Bush in his criticism of "a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations."

Like Bush and other American presidents, Obama hailed the United States as "one of the greatest sources of progress the world has ever known." And the candidate who treated our mission in Iraq with scorn seems to have felt obliged to acknowledge that "the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein" and that the government of Iraq is "democratically elected."

But he still has some history left to learn.

"No system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other." But that's what the United States did in Germany and Japan, and in Iraq, as well. As one of the Democratic senators who insisted that the Iraqis meet benchmarks, Obama was a micromanager in that process himself.

"We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity" into Afghanistan. No, it was by choice; we could have stayed out and depended, as we did after the attacks of the 1990s, on homeland defenses. And as for his claim that "Islam has always been a part of America's story," that's a stretch, and one that requires airbrushing out the war against the Barbary pirates.

Most disturbingly, Obama seems to have gotten the history of the Israel-Palestine issue wrong. The plight of the Palestinians since 1948 or 1967 is not the moral equivalent of the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust, as Obama's "on the other hand" segue suggested. Nor are private statements by Arabs accepting the continued existence of Israel the moral equivalent of Israeli governments' public willingness to negotiate with Palestinians.

Obama seems not to have learned from previous presidents' attempts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement that no solution is possible without an interlocutor willing to let Israel live in peace. His attempt to muscle Israel into stopping even natural growth of settlements beyond the 1967 line applies pressure to the party already willing to make peace. Obama needs to brush up on the Barbary pirates, but even more so on the last 40 years of Middle East history.

Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Source: THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER / CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.