This Program is History

A struggling school, a fistful of federal cash, and a smiling politician. What a great photo-op.

What’s even better for the politician: he doesn’t have to hand over any money next year – after the election.

It’s in Al Kamen’s In the Loop column in today’s Washington Post (page two, fourth item in column).

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (D-IL) handed over a $722,943 check to a school in the District of Columbia. The money is to train history teachers. Hastert used to be one – and a wrestling coach, too.

Hastert even delivered a speech about how important it is to teach history. We don’t have enough of them to go around.

Maybe he should have studied a little recent history.

A subcommittee in the chamber he leads voted just last week to kill the $119-million program.

This is a good example of what an acquaintance of mine called Hill’s Law. Kind of like Murphy’s Law, you know, “anything that can go wrong, will.” Except with Hill’s Law, you define what’s gone wrong with the world.

Simply put, Hill’s Law says: “The representation becomes the reality.” Or more to the point: Representations of reality become more important than the reality they represent.

Some examples he gave were:

*The brand becomes more important than the company.

*The painting becomes more important than the landscape.

*The prize becomes more important than the achievement.

In this case, the photo-op becomes more important than the program that made it possible.

That is at the core of what is wrong with Washington – that the photo-op of a politician speechifying on the importance of history teachers is more important than the ability to train those needed history teachers.

This is part of a historical trend with the way Washington works,

And as George Santayana said, those who fail to remember history are condemned to repeat it. So expect fewer history teachers and more photo-ops.