The case for more testing -- on the campaign trail

The Constitution lays out the bare requirements for becoming president: you need to be a citizen, at least 35 years old, and “fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

But I think we need to add a requirement -- that candidates prove they understand our nation’s history. It wouldn't be hard to do either: the secretary of education could administer the test -- preferably a really dry, standardized bubble test -- to each of the candidates and the rest of us can proctor it through YouTube.

Otherwise we risk having a President Sarah Palin who thinks Paul Revere was warning the British, bells and all, or a President Michele Bachmann who thinks the “shot heard round the world” was fired in New Hampshire. 

So that’s why today, as an officially-unannounced-and-unofficialy-not-exploring-candidate-for-anything, I’m calling on every statehouse in the union to make it top priority to insist that every presidential wannabe take this test. 

We can do this; the Constitution says it’s OK: “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments ... .”

So, New Hampshire, ready to get things moving? 

I don’t think this idea will encounter a lot of opposition. After all, wouldn’t every politician and candidate want to prove they know their stuff? 

Wait, wouldn't they?

That Palin flubbed such a basic part of our history during a tour that -- wink, wink -- was supposed to highlight the very foundation that our republic and history rests on is almost amazing. 

Sadly, however, it also illustrated a bigger issue that we have been facing for far too long: we don’t know our history, and we’re worse off for it.

Just last month we got another reminder that, as former Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor put it, “we have a crisis on our hands when it comes to civics education.” The reason for alarm was the results of last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress exam administered to 27,000 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-graders. The New York Times reported that “a quarter of 4th- and 12-th grade students, and about one-fifth of 8th graders, ranked at the proficient or advanced levels.” 

That’s not what Revere went riding for on the night of April 18, 1775, and it’s certainly not what the founders had in mind.

We need to do better, and it needs to happen in our schools and on the campaign trail, in our homes and across our communities. We need to get back to knowing who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’re about, and to do that we need to know our history. 

As you’re probably sick of reading about, and as the AP reported it, during her recent swing through Boston Palin described Revere as the guy “who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms by ringing those bells ... .”

Geez, I can’t even finish typing the quote. 

What’s more, she actually defended her take on things in an interview with Fox News. She maintained she “didn’t mess up” because “part of his ride was to warn the British that were there. That, hey, you’re not going to succeed.”

No, Sarah, that’s not what he was doing, you did “mess up” (which is OK, except you think history is important and want to be president!) -- and I don’t think the fact that Revere and others living in Boston, Lexington, and Concord (that’s Concord, Mass., Michele) at the time of the Midnight Ride were British subjects changes anything. By then they were essentially Americans-in-waiting. 

I know, I know. Since “news” of Palin’s history lesson broke you’ve heard that she was, in fact, right, and everyone else is wrong. 

Maybe you read Andrew Malcolm’s blog at latimes.com, the one where he reminded us that Revere was captured by British soldiers and “did indeed defiantly warn them of the awakened militia awaiting their arrival ahead ... .” 

And maybe you read what history Professor Brenden McConville of Boston University said in the Boston Globe, that what Palin said “is essentially right” since Revere did tell his captors “the countryside is mobilizing.”

But let’s not get carried away. Revere set out on that April night to warn revolutionary agitators Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and every other American rebel colonist along the way, that the British were coming for them and their arms. 

And no, he wasn’t ringing any bells. As the Globe reported based on information from Revere historian Joel Miller, though the North End silversmith “made bells, Revere would never have rung any on that famous night because the Redcoats were under orders to round up people just like him.”

I thought McConville put it well when he told the Globe that Palin is “lucky in her history as opposed to knowledgeable in her history.” 

But the question is what do you want in your president -- luck or smarts? 

Yeah, me too, a little bit of both, but preferably no more luck than smarts. 

This idea of mine -- to add a fourth requirement, a civic-knowledge-history test, to Article II, Section I of the Constitution -- isn’t about making sure we get the “smartest” person in the White House. After all, what's "smart"?

I just want someone who knows what he or she is talking about -- someone who doesn’t take literally the link at The Paul Revere House Website to “Recreate the Midnight Ride.”