First off, although conspicuously absent, Rep. Tom Tancredo was the unsung hero of the presidential debate that was sponsored by the Spanish-language television network, Univision.

Based in the United States, Univision is not based on English. The candidates were spoken at in Spanish, which is why Rep. Tancredo declined to participate. One of the moderators was a Mexican citizen and a strident advocate for Hispanics. The politics of special interests was yet another reason to turn-down the invitation; Tancredo declined to dignify a debate in which one of the topics was whether English ought to be America’s official language.

Rep. Tancredo made the right choice. Faces furrowed in an effort to comprehend the language, the seven dwarfs looked decidedly un-presidential during the Univision debate.

Mainstream media were agreed that for the occasion, says VDARE.com’s Allan Wall, all the presidential panderers "toned down, tempered, cooled, [and only] gingerly defended" their professed positions.

Especially conspicuous in his sappy sentimentality, syrupy sweet talk—in education he was going to “unleash weapons of mass instruction”—and statist solutions, was Mike Huckabee. I can see why media, women especially, love Big Daddy; whether he’s sermonizing about diet or the deity, Huckabee is the Oprah of the Evangelicals. 

Here’s Huckabee’s Heads-Up-for-Illegal-Aliens Plan, articulated at the Univision “panderfest”:

“When people come to this country, they shouldn't fear. They shouldn't live in hiding. They ought to have their heads up, because the one thing about being an American is, we believe every person ought to have his or her head up and proud, and nobody should have to be in hiding because they're illegal when our government ought to make it so that people can reasonably come here in a legal fashion.” [Emphasis added.]

Let’s unpack Huckabee’s hucksterism: Illegal aliens in the US are hanging their heads when they ought to be holding them high. The reason for these imaginary drooping crests is illegality brought on by harsh immigration policies. The way to raise heads high is to make illegality a thing of the past.

During the nationwide illegal-alien rallies, heads were held hubristically high. Since Huckabee, it would seem, missed those halcyon days, he would like to ensure illegals are hallmark happy by removing the reason for the slumping noggins. Translated from Huckabese, that means aiming to overturn, or leave unenforced, existing immigration laws, and thus disrespecting the rights of Americans and the country’s social and economic fabric.  

What Huckabee fails to get into his head is that illegal infiltrators are demanding what they most certainly are not entitled to. All men are imbued with natural—but not necessarily political—rights. The laws of this country ought to respect the natural rights of all people, legal and illegal. Not so their demands for political and welfare privileges, which is what Huckabee would like to continue honoring.

Illegal aliens on the march for undeserved political rights—that was not the only specter to have passed Huckabee by. As any on the liberal left, the governor is also ignorant of how pedagogic pop psychology has helped lighten the cerebral load in the craniums of American schoolchildren.

Huckabee’s antidote for the bumper crops of ignoramuses being produced in public schools follows the progressive Pleasure Principle: Please the little darlings; pleasure them, Huck prated at the Republican Presidential Debate in Iowa, for they are “bored to death.” We must “make sure we build the curriculum around their interests.” [Emphasis added.]

Hackneyed Huckabee is unaware that child-centered schooling has been in place for decades. Progressive pedagogues and parents have been gratifying children’s demands for fun and frivolity for a very long time now. 

The governor should also rest assured: It’s been quite some time since America’s youth were burdened by a core curriculum or exposed to a literary canon. Content-based, top-down education has long since been supplanted by pop-culture-friendly, non-hierarchically delivered flimflam.

Huckabee’s “idea” that learning ought to flow from the child is vintage romantic nineteenth-century progressivism. In their dedicated efforts to “romance the child,” progressives—also Hillary’s preferred handle—have always insisted that learning must be made natural, organic.

Classicists, as the authentic educator E. D. Hirsch Jr. has illustrated, see effective, analytical and explicit instruction as very definitely not a natural but a highly artificial, often-unintuitive process.

In other words, genuine learning is a tough process. Nothing that’s worth learning comes easily.

I’ll spare you Huckabee’s brain bifurcation balderdash—he puts great stock in right brain/left brain discredited pop psychology. His pop pedagogy is bad enough for one day.

©2007 By Ilana Mercer

   WorldNetDaily.com

    December 14