Churchill said, “history is written by the victors.”  Of course, Churchill was British, and naturally inclined to ignore large land masses.  Texas is one such land mass, and it’s large.  Large enough to drive the content of textbooks across America, and thus tell us what our history is.

Mind you, it’s not like Texas is the first to consider reinventing history.  When my kid asked me to help with African empires in World History class, I was stymied.  There were no African empires when I went to school.  There was Greek and Roman, Ottoman and Byzantine, but no African.  When did this happen?

According to the Washington Post, the Texas School Board commission is up to some shenanigans in an effort to undo years of “liberal bias.

The Texas state school board gave final approval Friday to controversial social studies standards that minimize the separation of church and state and say that America is not a democracy but a “constitutional republic.”

The changes, which passed in a series of 9 to 5 votes, could have reverberations far beyond the Lone Star State’s schools and its 4.7 million students. The state’s large textbook market has traditionally led the way for others; at minimum, Texas students will get very different history lessons than does the rest of the country, as early as next year. Many teachers, academics and politicians on both sides of the aisle have condemned the standards.

This story threw Ann Althouse into a tizzy, not necessarily the changes but the newspaper’s characterization of the changes.

Or at least link to the text. And if you choose to paraphrase and not even link, and I have to look up the text myself, and your paraphrase is not accurate, it is my job to embarrass you by pointing that out.

Let me embarrass the Washington Post. Below, the material from the WaPo article, written by Michael Birnbaum, is indented. After the indented part, I’ve located the relevant quote from the Board of Education text, found here. (I’m searching 3 PDF documents: Economics with Emphasis on the Free Enterprise System and Its Benefits Subchapter A. High School; Social Studies Subchapter B. Middle School; Social Studies Subchapter C. High School.)

Her point is well taken, that if you’re going to criticize something as WaPo has done, the least you can do is link to the source material should others wish to read it and draw their own conclusion.  This led Jonathan Adler at Volokh Conspiracy to come to Ann’s defense.

Based on what Althouse reports, Birnbaum and the Post should certainly be embarassed.

The Adler decided to take his own advice and do some legwork, resulting in an update to his post.

It appears Ms. Althouse may have blogged too soon — and I may have been too quick to repeat her accusations against the Post.  Althouse relied upon the text of the standards as proposed a few months ago, not the final language.  The Texas State Board of Education revised the standards this past week before approving them.  Based on live-blogging by the liberal Texas Freedom Network (see here and here), and the direct quotes (and, in some cases, video they provide), the Post’s characterizations of the final language is much more accurate that Althouse suggested.  I think it’s fair to suggest the Post story should have quoted the relevant language (as this prior story did), but unless there is something inaccurate about TFN’s account, Althouse and I both owe the Post and Birnbaum an apology.

Althouse is a very tricky writer, as I’ve learned to my chagrin.  It’s a gift.  Her ostensible point, that WaPo shouldn’t characterize when it could quote or link, is certainly a valid point. The undertone, however, that it’s some liberal conspiracy to falsely smear the changes approved by the Texas School Board (“but I never said that, did I?”) is plausibly deniable. 

One might quibble by arguing that Althouse complains of the Post’s characterizations, then employs her own in their place, though she does quote rather than paraphrase.  But Adler says, she quotes from the wrong source, making her quotes invalid.  This could just be sloppiness, but if you’re going to quote, the least you can do is quote from the right source.

Althouse too updates her post to note that Birnbaum had written another article, the day before, with quotes that support his characterizations.  She also knocks the Texas School Board for not having the text of what they approved available:

I’m critical of the Board of Education for not posting all the relevant text on its website. And — as should be obvious — I’m not endorsing the standards themselves. The complexity and detail alone tends to show that the Board did not have the best interests of children at the center of their project. And it didn’t seem to care much about the capacity of teachers. The material on law, for example, would be difficult for a law professor to teach to law students.

Having thus exculpated herself, the ramifications of Althouse’s initial crafty critique remain on display in her comments (warning, rough language ahead):

These fuckers lie and lie and lie their asses off. Liberals lie about everything, all the time. There is nothing in modern progressivism that is not a lie. Everything they do is perched on a foundation of lies. Every point they make is wrapped in a blanket of lies. The truth is not in them.

This is a classic example. But you’ve only scratched the surface.

Had this been written elsewhere, some blawgers would have taken the commenter to task, or at least addressed the content.  Others would have just deleted it.  At Althouse’s blog, it stands untouched. 

It’s impossible to divorce the process, the critique and the content of what the Texas School Board has done.   Some, like the above-quoted commenter, will no doubt applaud it with all his heart and soul.  Others will challenge some of the basic premises, such as elevating the Confederacy to equivalent status with the Union in teaching the philosophical underpinning of the Civil War. 

Adler’s comments at VC are, as might be expected, largely dismissive of Althouse and her readers.  But then, they had the advantage of watching some videos of the Texas School Board’s meeting.

And a glimpse at how substantive decisions were reached.

The North may have won the Civil War, but a majority of the Texas Board of Education has won the minds of our children.  Althouse readers are marching on the Washington Post with pitchforks and torches as I write.