Bad idea? You can book it
There are plenty of people around the nation who don’t care for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or anything that she hopes to accomplish in Congress. Which is why we were not surprised to receive an e-mail with the subject line: “Nancy Pelosi portrayed as villain.”
Only that wasn’t the complete headline — it finished with: “in new kid’s book.”
Author Katharine DeBrecht’s latest offering is “Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining My Country!” In the children’s book, DeBrecht dresses down Democrats by mocking their names (Speaker Queenosie, Congressman Fwank) and accusing them of “outlandish spending on pork projects and refusing to read the bills they pass,” according to the news release, which also points out that the book’s antagonists “are forced to put on dunce-like thinking caps in order to remember what inane projects were snuck into the bills.”
There are a couple of distinct problems here. The first is the hypocrisy of blaming only Democrats for outrageous pork-barrel spending. For example, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has padded his fair share of bills. Among them, as noted earlier this year in The New York Observer: “In Louisville, joggers can stretch their legs along the Mitch McConnell Loop Trail in the city’s new $38 million park.”
Second, and more harmful, is the preening vilification of people who don’t share the author’s political views in a book whose primary audience is children. Rather than providing a book that mocks Rep. Barney Frank’s speech impediment (most adults would chastise their kids if they caught them being so rude), parents and their offspring would be better served by discussing real issues, using real facts and not stereotypical smears.
What hope do we have for our nation’s future if we nurture our children to embrace the current fanaticism — on both sides of the aisle — with the “I’m right, you’re stupid” form of discourse? They deserve better.
