Mike Huckabee sure has had a goofy week. Not only is he leading a prayer chain to help him decide whether to run for president just in time for his big announcement tonight. (I bet God says no) he also announced he has created a series of cartoon history lessons for America’s children.
In a news release announcing his new company Learn Our History, Huckabee says, “America’s youth aren’t excited about our past because they’re being taught history in a way that minimizes what has made America a beacon of hope around the world for over 200 years. Instead, history lessons today often focus on America’s faults. It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of giving our children a historically accurate and unbiased education that allows kids today to enjoy and understand our history, and build their pride in our great nation.”
Learn Our History’s messages are all geared to promoting the idea of American Exceptionalism, and from the clips, they appear to be delivered with all the subtlety and Cold War fervor of the movie Red Dawn.
From Learn Our History web site’s Frequently Asked Questions:
What does it mean that Learn Our History is “unbiased”?
Learn Our History’s products have been developed to correct the “blame America first” attitude prevalent in today’s teaching. While we recognize that America is not perfect and has never been perfect we celebrate our incredible history with a balanced account of the events that created this great nation. We don’t feel bad about the great things America has achieved – we celebrate our success!
Is the history taught from a religious perspective?
At Learn Our History we recognize and celebrate faith, religion and the role of God in America’s founding and making our country the greatest place on Earth. Our videos are non-denominational in nature and can be enjoyed by families with diverse religious beliefs.
Huckabee recently said that all Americans should be forced to listen to pseudo-historian David Barton at gunpoint. While his name doesn’t appear on the list of the company’s “master historians,” Huckabee is clearly following Barton’s template where everything is spelled out in terms of good versus evil and anything in between is simply airbrushed from history.
They’re like a Sarah Palin speech crossed with those Davey and Goliath cartoons that my generation used to watch out of desperation on Sunday mornings while our parents were still asleep and there were literally no other cartoons on television.
