The Texas post

I'm of the opinion that most fights over history textbooks aren't really dramatic battles over the Truth, as often portrayed in newspapers, but rather more mundane squabbles over what exactly gets squeezed into the book. In other words, it's a fight over emphasis, not facts. For example, many people were outraged that the new Texas textbooks mentioned that there actually were some Soviet spies in various branches of the government in the 1950's, which to critics seemed a defense of McCarthyism. But again, the facts here aren't in serious dispute: Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs really were spies, but Joe McCarthy was also an opportunistic liar and drunk. Liberals and conservatives pick and choose which facts to include in the story in order for it to have the "right" moral.